Say you’re a manager or a senior-level executive — your job is to be a leader and to pick out leaders, to select who will be promoted, given extra responsibility, head a project or team. How do you know who will make a great leader in a given circumstance?
We know what makes great leaders great, but what makes a poor leader? The following traits would be a red flag that a person might not be ready for a leadership position:
1) Lack of empathy: If the person cannot seem to put him or herself in another person’s shoes and see things from a different perspective, they will never be a great leader.
2) Fear of change: It is scary for everyone, but leaders who cannot embrace change are destined to be left behind.
3) Too willing to compromise: Anyone who is too quick to compromise his or her ideas or ideals is not going to be a benefit to the team.
4) Too bossy: Ordering people around is unlikely to engender any loyalty or make subordinates feel empowered.
5) Wishy-washy: Leaders must make decisions, and so if a person always seems to vacillate on choices big and small — they will probably have difficulty in a leadership position.
6) Poor judge of character: A person who has a blind spot when it comes to friends and colleagues, making excuses or being unable to see another’s true character, won’t surround himself with the kind of people who will help him rise to the top.
7) Out of balance: Someone who is the first and last in the office might seem like a great candidate for promotion, but ask yourself if he or she has any balance in their lives?
8) Lack of humility: The person who acts as if they can do it all or is the only one that can do it right is unlikely to rise to be a great leader.
This is not to say that having one of these characteristics automatically bars anyone from assuming a leadership position. In fact, I believe people can learn to overcome any of these bad habits and become a better leader.
— The reader is a UAE resident.
