TRYING to emulate Gandhi or Jack Welch (or whichever other inspirational leader is your management hero) is a waste of time. Up-and-coming leaders would be better off correcting their own flaws rather than imitating others’ greatness, says a London Business School academic.

“I believe that it is quicker, easier and more effective for us as managers to stop doing the things that demotivate people than it is for us to bolt on radically new techniques from acknowledged inspirational leaders,” writes Steven Sonsino in People Management (Jan 11). “People the world over are more likely to be disaffected, disengaged or demotivated by their managers than motivated or inspired.”

He identifies “seven failings of really useless leaders”:

Killing enthusiasm through micromanagement, coercion and disrespect;

Killing emotion by being aggressive, lacking empathy and not supporting work-life balance;

Killing explanation through incomplete or inconsistent communication;

Killing engagement with limited team goals and an insistence on managers dictating objectives;

Killing reward by rewarding the wrong things or doing it in the wrong way, for example, by offering a cash bonus to someone who is not motivated by money;

Killing culture, for example by ignoring differences in working cultures when managing mergers between organisations or by “punishing risk- taking” while trying to introduce a culture of innovation; and

Killing trust by making unfair decisions when hiring or rewarding staff.

Sonsino argues that organisations that want to improve their leadership development should make room for informal one-on-one discussions alongside official training programmes; support experiential education; and provide coaching and mentoring. www.7failings.com

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