While nearly anyone can hold a leadership title, not all managers are created equal. Effective leaders inspire, drive growth and maintain team cohesion, whereas their ineffective counterparts inadvertently stifle productivity, morale and progress.
Many of these lacking managers often share a set of common traits that can be detrimental to their teams and the larger organization. Here, 19 Forbes Business Council members delve into these characteristics and the consequences they can have on a workplace and its staff.
1. Lack Of Empathy
Lack of empathy is a critical trait shared by many ineffective managers. This inability or unwillingness to understand or relate to the emotions, concerns and perspectives of their team members can have several negative consequences, including displaced trust, reduced cooperation, lower job satisfaction and limited employee growth. – Deyman Doolittle, ShipSigma
2. Poor People Skills
One thing I have noticed is if you take someone who is seemingly intellectually brilliant and somehow got promoted despite their lack of leadership and people skills, you will destroy your organization. One example is Captain Herbert Sobel, played by David Schwimmer, in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. When you have people like that who lead, you will lose your good people. – Zain Jaffer, Zain Ventures
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3. An Inability To Actively Listen
Many ineffective managers don’t use active listening. By not taking the time to understand their team’s concerns, ideas or feedback, they create an environment of mistrust and low morale. When employees feel unheard, they may become disengaged, believing their input is neither valued nor impactful. Over time, this can lead to decreased productivity, stifled creativity and employee turnover. – Catherine Wehlburg, Athens State University
4. Poor Communication Skills
Many ineffective managers lack strong communication skills. Clear communication is crucial for conveying expectations, providing feedback and fostering a positive work environment. Therefore, a lack of strong communication skills leads to misunderstandings, low morale and confusion among their team members. – Salvador Ordorica, The Spanish Group LLC
5. A Tendency To Micromanage
An ineffective manager often micromanages and halts their team’s growth by preventing them from taking on new roles and responsibilities. This not only signals a lack of trust in their performance, but also delays outcomes, reinforcing the perceived need to micromanage. – Francisco Ramirez, The ACE Group (TAG)
6. An Inability To Establish Clear Expectations
Ineffective managers often don’t invest time in their teams and fail to establish clear expectations and goals. This undermines performance and morale. Successful managers prioritize training, offer ongoing support and understand diverse team dynamics. Incorporating neurodiversity concepts enhances effective management by tailoring approaches to how individuals learn, think and are motivated. – Arthur Bretschneider, Seniorly, Inc.
7. A Procrastination Habit
Procrastination leads to everything becoming a last-minute “fire” that needs to be put out, which then negatively impacts the team’s ability to effectively manage their schedules. When someone says that they’re great at putting out intra-office fires, I’m often suspect because more often than not, these leaders are procrastinators and their lack of discipline and diligence lit the match. – Dr. David Lenihan, Tiber Health
8. Insufficient Communicator
Insufficient communication has adverse effects on teamwork, alignment of goals and employee engagement. When managers encounter challenges in conveying expectations, giving feedback and active listening, it results in misunderstandings that cause confusion, lower morale and decreased productivity. Effective communication fosters collaboration and support among the overall team. – Neha Naik, RecruitGyan
9. Leading Through Ego
The most destructive trait I have seen in poor leaders is leading through ego. When decision makers “lead” with their own ego, interests, pride and convictions, they often ignore external inputs, iteration and divergent perspectives. As a result, they often forget the collaborative, empathetic and symbiotic elements that motivate others and elicit mutual accountability, commitment and effort. – Ori Carmel, Sowen
10. A Reluctance To Delegate
A common flaw in ineffective managers is their reluctance to delegate. Rooted in the belief that “only I can do it right,” they tend to micromanage, hoarding tasks instead of distributing them. This not only exhausts the manager, but also sidelines team members and deprives them of developmental opportunities. Such an approach stifles creativity, erodes trust and dampens team morale. – Pedro Barboglio, Remote Team Solutions
11. Inflexibility
Unsuccessful managers resist change and new ideas. This stifles innovation, limits growth and makes it hard to adapt in a dynamic work environment. – Chase Flashman, ShipSigma
12. An Inability To Explain The Team’s Mission
A major flaw I’ve seen is an inability to explain the mission of their department or a lack of understanding of the importance of doing so. It’s simply a job when it’s doing repetitive tasks every day, but it’s a calling when a team is empowered to meet their own personal department’s mission. I’ve had each department develop its own mission statement that supports the overall mission of the company. – Joseph White, Real Estate and Mortgage Institute of Canada Inc.
13. Assuming Full Responsibility For Their Team’s Work
Managers who think they are responsible for people’s work tend to micromanage, which produces resentment in workers. People want autonomy to use their skills and interests to do good work. Therefore, these ineffective managers can switch to become effective coaches by helping workers manage their own success. It’s a win-win. – Jerry Cahn, Age Brilliantly
14. A ‘Me Vs. We’ Mindset
A “me vs. we” approach is a hallmark of many ineffective managers. This mindset revolves around prioritizing personal success over the collective success of the team. When managers focus on their own achievements, team members can feel undervalued and disconnected. This leads to reduced morale, motivation and engagement, ultimately affecting the team’s overall productivity. – Neena Pandey, The String Code and Indie Roots
15. Failure To Set Goals
Ineffective managers often fail to set clear goals, and then micromanage to make matters worse. It’s very hard to achieve the right outcome when employees don’t understand the overall goal and their individual objectives. Without clear goals, employees become frustrated and demotivated, which in turn impacts other employees and lowers overall team morale. – Jason Foodman, Rosy Salon Software
16. Lack Of Trust
Ineffective managers often show a noticeable lack of trust in their team members, which can hurt team performance. When managers don’t trust their team members and the quality of their work, team members feel less motivated to get their job done right. This lack of trust can also weaken the sense of unity and dedication within the team, causing a decrease in enthusiasm and commitment toward tasks. – Mark Snell, Polestar Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning
17. Lack Of Cognitive Empathy
Lack of cognitive empathy is often a trait that many ineffective managers possess. The line between nice and kind is misunderstood, or people tend to displace it all together in harshness in actions. The wisdom to communicate difficult things with compassion and back that communication up with actions that empower and elevate tends to be lacking with these managers. It hurts morale and productivity and creates a path for turnover. – Paul L. Gunn, Jr., KUOG Corporation
18. Laziness
Lazy managers breed lazy associates. Laziness will destroy a company, so we do not tolerate it. – ‘Smitty’ Robert J. Smith, Robert J. Smith Productions
19. Poor Emotional Intelligence
A trait ineffective managers have in common is a lack of emotional intelligence. Leading people isn’t all about assigning tasks and delegating work; it’s a process of building trust and getting to know the employees as individuals. Being inattentive and dismissive of their inner and emotional world is a recipe for employee turnover and failed management. – Ivan Popov, Vipe Studio
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