The biggest failure in leadership comes from fear & doubt.
These fears and doubts come from many places, one of which we will focus on here - information. That’s right - information - too much information that is!
In the pursuit of perfection and the quick fix (two opposing forces btw), leaders will seek information so that they can be right, certain, and produce pain free results for everyone involved. This behavior narrows the leader’s thinking and puts their courage on hold ultimately driving their anxiety in pursuit of unattainable results.
The information they find is often inaccurate, confusing, and contradicting. This begins a cycle to seek more information which in turn produces more inaccurate, confusing, and contradicting information. Round and round they go. They can’t stop. Important decisions are delayed or never made. The business struggles and still they seek more information producing a never-ending cycle of bad leadership.
Have you ever been on Amazon trying to decide on a purchase? Let's say you wanted a new pair of jeans. You type “jeans” into the Amazon search engine and OMG! Look at how many choices you have. You start to narrow your choice down by digging a little deeper. Sex, color, price, material, customer reviews (be sure to read them all), brand, availability, fit, stretch, and Prime. The more you dig the more questions you have. You dig in deeper. Your search takes days and begins to produce doubts that you even needed the jeans in the first place. In the end, you become so frustrated and exhausted by your search you decide to wait (but really what you're doing is quitting).
This same process takes place in many businesses. Bad leaders need to come up with a perfect decision. One that makes everyone happy. One that makes money for the business immediately. They keep seeking and waiting. So much waiting - so little action. The internet is a great enabler for these leaders. Ask Google any question and you will get hundreds of websites, articles, and blogs all claiming to have the silver bullet solution. The ones that claim they can solve the issue in days are the most looked at and the most believed. The reality is that bad leaders believe they can solve major issues in a very short time and do not need to invest the business's time and money. They keep seeking and waiting and never move forward.
Bad leaders are always struggling and always frustrated.
How much information do you really need? When is it time to burn the paper, make a decision, and move forward?
Did you know that 50% of the knowledge you need to run your business in 5 years doesn't exist today?
Keep yourself up to date. There’s so much more to know and there’s so much we will share with you.
More:
https://www.lionswayconsulting.com/post/i-just-farted-snowflakes
https://www.lionswayconsulting.com/post/riddle-me-this-batman
https://www.lionswayconsulting.com/post/3-myths-all-business-owners-believe
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