Blanchard research uncovers top leadership mistakes

More than 1400 executives gave evidence to the Blanchard Organisation about the biggest mistakes leaders make.  The research was commissioned in response to findings over the last four years that organisations consider developing good leaders to be their number one people development issue.

Number one mistake was found to be failing to give appropriate feedback, followed closely by failing to listen or involve others in the decision-making processes. 82% of the executives interviewed agreed that failing to provide appropriate feedback such as praise or redirection was the number one leadership failing, while 81% indicated they had fallen foul of leaders who did not listen to them. 76% felt leaders often failed to set clear goals or objectives and the same percentage stressed how leaders use leadership styles inappropriate to the person, task or situation. Failing to train and develop their people was the fifth most common complaint, with 59% of respondents highlighting this issue.

In open ended questions about the biggest mistake leaders make when working with others the five most common answers were inappropriate use of communication (41%), under or over-supervision (27%), lack of management skills (14%), lack of or inappropriate support (12%) and lack of accountability (5%).

Responding to the survey, Jim O'Brien, managing director of the Ken Blanchard Companies in the UK, said: "Effective leadership is the backbone of an organisation and to see executives highlighting these particular leadership errors is very worrying.

"They are mistakes no leader should ever make. It seems, staggeringly, that many leaders out there do not have even the most basic, critical leadership skills they need to do their job properly and this is bad news for business.

"We all know leaders hold the key to organisational success - good leaders create an environment where employees thrive and where they take care of their customers; bad leadership heads ultimately to low organisational vitality, high staff turnover and poor customer loyalty."