Tips on How to be a really in-effective Leader!

Feb 24 - by Darren

The creative spark for this weeks blog on leadership has come from re-reading Napoleon Hill’s absolute gem of a book ‘Think and Grow Rich’ and notice the title of the book is not ‘Do and Grow Rich’.

Napoleon Hill has written several masterpieces and ‘Think & Grow Rich is a gem in many ways, it’s also a very easy read with many powerful insights.  In the book Mr.Hill provides simple guidelines on effective leadership.  I’m not a leadership guru and don’t want to be and I do believe effective leadership is important in business and in life.  There’s lots of leadership ‘gurus’ and ‘experts’ out there telling you what you ‘should’ be doing, what is effective leadership? etc etc and that’s great, I just thought: Why not turn the Leadership question upside down? focusing on ‘WHAT NOT DO’ instead of the usual – here’s what you ‘should’ be doing.

So enjoy the following guidelines on How to be a really IN-EFFECTIVE leader…

1. Don’t have a clear picture of where you want to be, where you want your business to be and how you want it to be.

2. Don’t listen to your staff, your team, your employees, what do they know? They are only doing a job, how could they pretend to understand your business?

3. Don’t delegate, because one of your team members may get to know more than you, they may steal your position.  Be sure to keep everything to yourself, because knowledge is power. Your team does not want to help or learn more at work, they do not want to feel valued or trusted by you and lets face it they just want your money anyway.

4. Be autocratic and forceful as its your given right, bark commands and tell people what you want done and never explain why you want it done, there’s no point giving reasons just let people make assumptions.

5. Don’t organise yourself or manage details. Don’t plan ….what’s the point? Planning doesn’t work and everyone loves 8-10 hrs of chaos – 5 days per week.

6. Don’t get your sleeves rolled up, don’t get mucked in when the team needs support, your the boss and that’s not what you do, go to the golf course instead, she’ll either sink or swim and if she sinks you’re not there and no one can blame you.

7. Expect to be paid for what you know and not for what you do with what you know, because knowledge by itself  is power.

8. Claim all honour of success for yourself, because no one else has made any contribution.

9. Lose your temper and shout, it’s the only way to get things done around the place and it inspires the team, it also induces creativity in the minds of your followers.

10. Don’t communicate with your staff or employees, don’t have regular meetings with them…what do they know? And lets face it communicating is a waste of time, use mind reading or telepathy instead.  Your the captain of the ship anyway and you can make the ship steam along without the engine room in the back knowing where you are going, why you are going there and how.

11. Don’t be loyal to your business, your word, your actions or your team, that way you can teach your team to break commitments.

12. Do not ask questions and do not challenge the status quo, always accept things as they are because that way you’ll keep doing what you have always done, always getting the results that you have always got and no one wants better results.

13. Don’t be approachable. Do not have an open door policy and ensure you put a lot of emphasis on your title or the label you have chosen to give yourself.

14. Never say thanks when a staff member or employee does good work, why should you say thanks? You pay them after all – that’s enough and never tell them what ‘them or him/her doing a good job really well actually meant to you’.

15. Don’t walk your talk because that way you’ll create rapport, trust, loyalty and credibility and when things don’t work out no one can blame you.

16. Don’t be clear on your business values, that way you don’t have to honour them.

17. Never smile at work because its contagious and the last thing you want is happy staff or employees, because at the very worst that could create a harmonious working environment, with highly productive people delivering great customer service.