Sabotage Success as a New Leader: Top 6 Traps to Avoid

Many Things Can Sabotage Success as a New Leader
Data from our leadership simulation assessments and an analysis of thousands of 360° feedback reports reveal a consistent pattern of leadership weaknesses — the very behaviors that can derail even the most promising new leaders.

Great leaders deliberately create the conditions for their teams to thrive and deliver at the highest level. They:

• Pursue excellence.
• Set clear standards.
• Earn followership because working for them is both challenging and rewarding.

Too often, however, leaders drift into complacency. They:

• Grow comfortable.
• Avoid risk.
• Mistake past success for future effectiveness.

Leadership is never static — it demands continuous effort, self-awareness, and the discipline to keep raising the bar. The highest-performing leaders understand this reality and actively avoid common leadership traps that undermine performance and credibility.

Six Common Leadership Traps that Can Sabotage Success as a New Leader

Succumbing to even one of these six leadership traps can cause your weaknesses to overwhelm your strengths — and undermine your credibility before you ever gain traction in a new leadership role.

1. The Trap: Failure to Paint a Clear and Compelling View of the Future
   Our organizational alignment research shows that strategic clarity accounts for 31% of the difference between high and low performing teams.  It also found that executive teams find the strategy two times more clear than those who report to them.  Even though you and your senior management team may be definite on the organization’s strategic priorities, effective leaders ensure their teams fully understand and believe in both the overall strategy and their contribution required to make it happen.
   
   Employees need and want to know where they fit into the big picture — how what they do directly contributes to the whole. There is little satisfaction in coming to work every day without knowing where all your effort is headed.
   
   How to Avoid This Leadership Trap:
   To not fall into this leadership trap, actively discuss and debate your strategy with your work force until they:
   
   
   • Understand the overall business strategy.
   • Know how their work directly contributes to the whole.
   • Believe the strategy will lead to successful results.
   • Feel the company will commit to fully implementing the strategy across the company.

To read the final 5 leadership traps, please download 6 Traps That Can Sabotage Success as a New Leader

by Tristam Brown: CEO

Tristam Brown is an executive business consultant and organizational development expert with more than three decades of experience helping organizations accelerate performance, build high-impact teams, and turn strategy into execution. As CEO of LSA Global, he works with leaders to get and stay aligned™ through research-backed strategy, culture, and talent solutions that produce measurable, business-critical results. See full bio.