Are You Leading For Approval Ratings?

Seeking Approval and Validation

Are you generally a nice person? Does your need to be liked by others sometimes affect your ability as a leader? The challenge for everyone is that when positive qualities are overextended, they can work against you.

The reality is that everyone has “need for approval” to a certain degree. The question is: do you have too much? If you do seek a high-level of approval and your natural style is also to avoid conflict, you can be flirting with disaster as a leader.

How This Affects Leadership

In several of my recent articles, I referred to a business owner who sold his business prematurely. He lost about a quarter of its value – approximately $5 million because he could not obtain external financing to keep it afloat. This was one just one of the areas that led to this sad result. Another area was his lack of financial discipline. A third facet of his self-destruction was that he wanted to stay in everyone’s good graces, even with employees and vendors who were taking advantage of him.

What Type of CEO Are You?

Do you spend a lot of time trying to be the fun CEO? Are you creating fun meetings and all kinds of outings so that everyone is happy? Do you find it hard to have tough discussions with the people you like? When it is time to fire people that are failing to perform, do you do it yourself or do you send someone else in to do the deed? When big issues come up in the company, such as problems with your partner, do you try to get someone else to handle it? Are you guilty of putting off tough discussions that should really be addressed immediately? Do tough decisions get drawn out because you do not want to push for the decision when consensus was lacking? Have you been guilty of waiting and hoping that a people problem would somehow disappear? And when it didn’t disappear and things got out of control, did you then overcompensate by making a rash decision because you felt close to the person?

Weaknesses Can Backfire

Well some of your people are noting these weaknesses and will capitalize on them later on. While your company may be doing well right now, you should learn to lead differently. If you are interested in learning how, let’s schedule a time to further discuss your business. Call Howard Shore for a FREE consultation at 305.722.7213 or contact Activate Group, Inc. today.