1. Life is too short to waste it working for a mediocre or toxic leader. 

Here’s the first post in my 10 Years – 10 Truths series. I’m going to reflect on my decade of helping leaders and organizations scale strong leadership accountability. 

In the last few weeks, I’ve led sessions with the senior leaders of two organizations.  

In the first group, we discussed the ideas from my book, Accountable Leaders. It was like a conversation you would have with a book club. 

The biggest insight these leaders shared was the acknowledgment that they were tolerating mediocrity from their managers and leaders. They also realized the impact that this is having on their employees. They came away with the conviction to begin to tackle this challenge head-on. 

In the other session, my team and I were working with a group of leaders who were going through quite a bit of change. They had a new leader who had a compelling vision for the future. She’d replaced a long-standing leader who was simply toxic. 

In frank and honest discussions, these leaders talked about having “leadership trauma” from the years of mistreatment, micromanaging, and disrespect shown by this toxic leader. 

“Leadership trauma” sounds heavy or even overdramatic. But in my work as a strategic leadership adviser, I’ve seen this play out too many times. It’s heartbreaking and really gets me angry. One highly confidential project involved conducting interviews with senior executives after a CEO had been fired. The board chair realized this CEO was toxic. In fact, in my conversation with the chair, he said, “He is a sociopath, and this happened on my watch. I must make things better.” 

The interviews were unbelievable. Hearing the details of how this leader mistreated and manipulated his leaders was astonishing. No leader, no human being, for that matter, has the right to treat people so poorly. 

My research on mediocre leadership identifies five top characteristics that these disappointing leaders demonstrate:  

1. Blame others. When something goes wrong, they immediately point the finger at someone else. They never personally acknowledge their role in or contribution to any mistake or failure.  
2. Selfish and self-serving. Mediocre leaders also tend to be profoundly selfish. They act out of self-interest. They bring a sense of entitlement to their roles.  
3. Uncivil and mean. These leaders regularly mistreat, demean, and bully others. They’re dreadful to work for, and they create tremendous personal stress for those they lead.  
4. Inept and incompetent. Many mediocre leaders are inept and incompetent – they don’t have the right instincts for leadership. They make bad decisions and leave a trail of disaster behind them. The worst ones are those who are inept but think they are great.  
5. Lack of initiative. Mediocre leaders are lazy and unwilling to work hard. They look for the easy way out of any situation. They deflect responsibility, or they always stay under the radar, never to be seen or heard.  

My research findings also confirmed what I’ve seen in my work with organizations:  mediocre leaders are everywhere, and they have a significant negative impact on the people they lead.  

The global survey collected hundreds and hundreds of open-ended comments describing the deeply visceral and negative impact of mediocre leaders. As my team and I analyzed the responses, it became quite overwhelming. Here’s one direct quote from a respondent: