Are you inadvertently Hindering Your Team's Progress?

Unknowingly, Is Your Leadership Style Inadvertently Slowing Down Progress?

What if the largest obstacle to your team's achievements, is you?

In my experience of coaching leaders and their teams, I've seen how certain thought patterns and behaviours can unknowingly undermine your team's progress and development, to help illustrate this challenging idea, I’m sharing a recent coaching relationship where a Head of Digital’s kindness and high standards led to their team being fearful of taking risks.

Is Your Leadership Style Inadvertently Slowing Down Progress?

The Self-Sabotage Conundrum: Leadership is fraught with challenges, one of the most deceptive being self-sabotage - meaning it is often how you're insecurities and fears subtly limit you and your team's potential. How plausible does that sound, as you really try to lead well, but consider how perfection might seem admirable, but setting unattainable standards can lead to personal exhaustion which has a ripple effect on your team exhaustion, resulting in the fallout from self-sabotaging behaviours goin well beyond missed deadlines or objectives.

The Underrated Costs of Neglecting Self-Sabotage

So its less about missed deadlines or objectives and more about how your own excessive caution, under the guise of being prudent, can hinder your team's progress and opportunities for growth. These tendencies can suppress your team's creative and innovative capabilities, here’s how this has affected a recent coaching relationship with a Head of Digital, running multiple teams.

Case study: This conscientious leader noticed their team's workload was building. To avoid burnout in the team they took on additional projects and tasks themselves, wanting to be kind and be seen as a good leader. 

Rooted in our exploration of how kind, useful and effective this line of management had on themselves, the team on the organisation, this response stood out:

‘It will be quicker if I do it myself and do it better’

… hello perfectionism. In this moment perfectionism not only burdened this leader with way more work than was healthy and deprived their team members of growth opportunities. There is a multiplier effect of this attitude and behaviour. 

As this behaviour is repeated what we uncovered was a fear around mistakes in the leader had created a team culture where mistakes are not seen as growth opportunities. Rather risk and risk-taking are to be avoided at all costs, why only if they can be delivered well, really well or basically perfectly!

We questioned how avoidance of risk could impact the team exploring new ideas or taking initiative….the aha moment for this well-intentioned leader is, that this goes beyond poor boundaries in leadership and a tendency for high standards:

‘my high standards are affecting my teams performance!”

Acknowledging and addressing these patterns for this leader not only fostered personal growth but also cultivated a more dynamic and successful team environment.

Why? Modelling behaviour = the way you conduct yourself as a leader sets the tone for your team's culture. If your leadership is marked by fear of failure or a need to please everyone, this mindset can trickle down and reflect in your team's approach to work, creating a cautious, uncreative, and demotivated workforce.

The Path to Overcoming Self-Sabotage

Identifying these self-sabotaging tendencies is the first step towards positive change. It requires a mix of self-reflection and openness to feedback. Acknowledge the areas where fear and insecurity influence your leadership. 

Are you hesitant to delegate? 

Do you avoid taking risks for fear of failure? 

Are your attempts to please everyone causing confusion and inconsistency?

How are you helping the team in moments of challenge, facilitating and coaching or controlling and maybe even micromanaging?

Would you comfortably ask for help or muddle through yourself?

These are all signs of; self-sabotage, or beliefs and behaviours holding you back. What we are learning it is also impacting your team. too.

I’m not casting judgment we all have blindspots and still asking for help is my Achilles heal. Why I am passionate about coaching is, that coaching spaces create opportunities to be honest and find areas fo learning, risk-taking and ultimately growth. Shifting from a mindset of fear to one of trust and respect can dramatically alter the dynamics of your team, fostering innovation and resilience.

Final Thought

The journey from being an insecure leader to a confident one who uplifts their team is challenging but rewarding when you make the first step in understanding how you may hold yourself back.