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Today, let's answer the first of two (2) questions raised during yesterday's Discipleship Devotional: Whose leadership style are you matching, and what behaviors do you now exemplify? I would like for you to answer this question by answering these questions:

  1. Does your style of leadership hurt people by making things worse or does your leadership make things better?
  2. Does your leadership style foster trust or raise suspicion? 
  3. Does your leadership style lift up or bury morale? 

Your answers to the above listed questions says a lot about the kind of leader you are and the style of leadership you exemplify to yourself and others.

A blog written by Resources list 10 traits of bad leadership. Those traits are:

  1. Bad leaders lack empathy
  2. Bad leaders micromanage
  3. Bad leaders communicate poorly
  4. Bad leaders are egotistical
  5. Bad leaders resist change
  6. Bad leaders lack vision or direction
  7. Bad leaders have a negative mindset
  8. Bad leaders are inconsistent 
  9. Bad leaders lack transparency
  10. Bad leaders are indecisive

Remember, their are no perfect leaders outside of Jesus Christ. We all have traits we can work on. With that said, I can now say this, I am not saying that if your leadership style reflects any of the above that you are a bad leader. I'm talking about a persistent lifestyle of bad leadership, not periodic mistakes. Periodically, we all make mistakes and good leaders learn from their mistakes, course-correct, and become better leaders as a result of those experiences.

Leadership that exemplifies the above list as a day-in-day-out lifestyle with no desire and/or motivation to change, is what I call bad leadership. If that's the kind of leadership you've learned from, and you see the same patterns in yourself, I would like to encourage you to start with developing empathy. Indeed recommendations that you start with developing your empathetic leadership muscles, including:

  • Be authentic - show you understand where people are coming from and give honest reasons for your actions/feedback.
  • Be present - eliminate distractions to engage in the moment as a source of understanding and support.
  • Be vulnerable - share your experiences, including challenges, to show you can relate to how others are feeling or what they're going through.
  • Acknowledge success - recognize achievements big and small to show appreciation and respect.
  • Ask questions - Dig deeper to show you're interested and care enough to learn more. 

If you would like to learn more by taking my Discipleship Devotional a step further, I encourage you to take the leadership engagement challenge at https://simppir.com 

That's a good place to course-correct when you see the need for change.

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