Ten Deeply Destructive Mistakes That Suggest the Answer Is No (and How to Stop Making Them)

Editor’s note: John Hamm explains in his new book, Unusually Excellent: The Necessary Nine Skills Required for the Practice of Great Leadership, why your employees may not see you as a leader — and what you can do to capture their hearts and minds. As recruiting business owners, the “business owner” part is the most important, because it’s the core ownership fundamentals that allow you to make decisions, often difficult ones, that make your recruiting efforts fruitful. Among these are good leadership skills. Management and leadership are often intermingled in people’s minds, and good managers SHOULD be good leaders.

I hope you will read about these mistakes that are excerpted here from Hamm’s book, and think about where your own strengths and weaknesses are. Leading a team or a company isn’t easy, often requires hard choices, and isn’t for the faint of heart. But as you well know — the risk is worth the reward of being your own boss and calling the shots.

There are people in every organization you know whose titles indicate they are leaders. Often, and unfortunately, their employees beg to differ. Oh, they don’t say it directly, not to the boss’s face, anyway. They say it with their ho-hum performance, their games of avoidance, their dearth of enthusiasm. Leaders — real leaders who have mastered their craft — don’t preside over such lackluster followers. If reading this makes you squirm with recognition, you may have a problem lurking.

You’re really just masquerading. You haven’t yet earned the right to lead.