Which one of these top leadership mistakes will you make?

ILLUSTRATION BY RUTH MACAPAGAL

The smallest and largest companies in the world can make the same leadership mistakes that keep them from growing to their full potential. If you don’t know how to avoid them, you and your business may lose countless time, energy, money and resources. Have you ever had the feeling that you or your business could do much more, achieve more and be more if you only knew how?

The science of fulfillment versus the science of achievement

Recently, I had dinner with the patriarch of one of the wealthiest families in the world. He wanted to ensure an enduring family and an enduring business. After our long conversation, it became clear to me that he lacked the leadership skill to delegate properly, thereby burdening himself unnecessarily with micromanaging their business conglomerate. Sundays were no exception for him.

We need to distinguish between the science of fulfillment and the science of achievement. In my playbook, there is no need to become very successful if you cannot master the science of personal happiness at the same time. And that includes enjoying time off and spending enough high-quality time with friends and the people you love.

What I have seen again and again in my work with CEOs and business owners is that the ones who are the most fulfilled are the ones who keep their balance and take good care of themselves. They do not drop the ball on family, friends, their health and their spiritual well-being.

The ones who drop the ball on these usually end up having nothing else to show for outside their professional success. It leaves them largely unfulfilled, with an undefined sense of incompletion, a void they cannot fill.

Tunnel vision

A lot of business owners and CEOs do not understand that the life of any highly successful entrepreneur or business leader naturally has different seasons. The truth is that there are times when you have to forget about balance, your friends and other things you hold dear, and go all in to focus 100 percent on your next breakthrough goal.

Many of the most successful business leaders, especially the ones that defy all odds and create billionaire empires, apply the technique of “tunnel vision.” What does that mean? They always see the No.1 goal that they want to achieve as a backdrop within their mind, no matter what they do. They focus on it constantly and attune all their actions to it.

This sustained focus almost becomes like a meditation in itself. I call this the “champion’s attitude” because it is the No.1 technique that separates the winners from the losers, not just in business but also in sports, the arts, and other areas.

In my work as a consultant and advisor to the presidents of some of the world’s largest companies, and as a coach to top Fortune 500 CEOs and even world-champion athletes, I have taught this technique to my clients so they can accomplish phenomenal results, whether it is an exponential profit boost or a new world record.

It is, in essence, a full focus on a single-minded goal to achieve extraordinary outcomes.

The magic of the right teams

This is another leadership mistake a lot of business executives or owners make: they do not understand what it takes to build winning teams. Putting the right teams together requires a carefully orchestrated multi-faceted approach.

First, you need to know what kind of people you need and in which positions they should play. Even a genius will play badly if put in the wrong position. Or would you want Albert Einstein to play on your basketball team?

Second, you need to have excellent people skills to see through the facade of the beauty contest that takes place when people want to get hired or come for an interview. You need to have the skill to see through people with X-ray vision to determine if someone is a good fit for a position or not. This requires many years of experience and a combination of analysis and gut feeling, expertise and natural talent.

If you do not have it, get experts who can do that for you. This is a mistake even some of the most successful businesses make. I remember when a European family asked me to have a closer look at a new CEO they hired for one of their businesses because they had the vague feeling something was off. And they were right. After spending a couple of hours with him, it became clear to me that he could not successfully run their business with almost 100,000 employees. He was in way over his head. He survived three months, then he was gone.

Albert Einstein on your basketball team?

Third, you need to know people’s strengths and weaknesses. Do not force fit someone into a role! It never works out. This includes members of family businesses, of course.

Fourth, team people up so they complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses. They need to be like magnets whose opposite sides attract. Too often, business executives give no or too little consideration at all to this thorough understanding of strengths and weaknesses within the team, and to matching people up with their right positions.

This is as challenging as putting a great basketball team together that doesn’t just play but scores and then wins championships. There is science, craft and art to it that comes from talent, experience and knowing what is most needed in which position.

The mastery of proper communication

A fast-growing company in the retail industry that was already a market leader in many different countries approached us because they have always encountered fundamental challenges when they tried to scale up. The owner had no idea why this was happening. When he talked to his top people, everybody told him that there were no real challenges in the company that should prevent it from failing before they started the next major growth initiative.

As a result, the business owner invested millions of dollars into the next wave of expansion only to find out that, once more, the expansion failed and they more or less stayed at their current level of size. Of course, he could repeat this easily 100 times because persistence without insight leads to the same results.

He approached us to find the root causes of these challenges. Of course, these root causes are rarely what the CEO or owners think they are because they are too close to the trees to see the forest. There are walls they simply cannot see through. One of the reasons why we have been able to achieve extraordinary net profit increases for our clients is that we know who to put into the right positions.

In his case, he lacked the leadership skills to communicate openly with his employees. He also failed to instill the trust in his top people that they could come to him no matter what mistakes they had made or how bad the news was that they wanted to convey.

As a business leader, make sure you encourage a culture of open-mindedness, transparency and honest communication. It is the best insurance policy for your business. INQ

Tom Oliver, a “global management guru” (Bloomberg), is the chair of The Tom Oliver Group, the trusted advisor and counselor to many of the world’s most influential family businesses, medium-sized enterprises, market leaders and global conglomerates. For more information and inquiries: www.TomOliverGroup.com or email

[email protected].