{"id":5388,"date":"2016-07-26T06:57:08","date_gmt":"2016-07-26T11:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=5388"},"modified":"2016-07-26T06:57:08","modified_gmt":"2016-07-26T11:57:08","slug":"leadership-getting-hard-resist-these-3-shortcuts-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/26\/leadership-getting-hard-resist-these-3-shortcuts-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Leadership Getting Hard? Resist These 3 Shortcuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever been tempted to take a leadership shortcut?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sure you have. Every leader faces the temptation at some point to avoid the sometimes hard, grueling, long road that leadership often requires.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This week I returned from a visit to Cuba, where I connected with leaders who face significant challenges on a daily basis. But what impressed me was their tenacity; their refusal to look for the easy “out”; their commitment to avoid leadership shortcuts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Here are three of the most common, and deadly, leadership shortcuts to avoid\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Creating policies<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Moving people or organizations forward requires the hard work of leadership. It requires vision casting, team building, and difficult conversations.<\/p>\n

But instead of doing this hard work, some leaders will opt instead to simply churn out a few policies.<\/p>\n

Policies might have their place. Just don\u2019t confuse them with leadership.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Losing your cool<\/strong><\/h2>\n

When a leader loses their cool, it\u2019s like a child throwing a temper tantrum. Both are frustrated that they\u2019re not getting their way. And so they pitch a fit.<\/p>\n

If people give in to this, it can create the illusion that there has been a leadership accomplishment. But \u2018powering up\u2019 isn\u2019t the same as leadership. It\u2019s more like bullying.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s just another shortcut.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Creating a new org chart<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u2026or reorganizing\u00a0anything<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A leader paralyzed with indecision will sometimes whip out a piece of paper or run to a white board and start drawing boxes, circles and lines with abandon.<\/p>\n

In time a brand new exciting organization chart can emerge, and the resulting change in reporting structures can provide yet another illusion that real leadership has taken place.<\/p>\n

But, once again, it hasn\u2019t. It\u2019s just another shortcut.<\/p>\n

Face it. Sometimes leadership is just hard. Moving a group of people forward requires tremendous effort and tenacity.<\/p>\n

And in the midst of it all it can be very tempting to simply take one of these shortcuts.<\/p>\n

But resist these easy \u2018outs\u2019. Stick to the hard work of leadership.<\/p>\n

The results will be worth it.<\/p>\n

What other leadership shortcuts have you seen?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever been tempted to take a leadership shortcut? Sure you have. Every leader faces the temptation at some point to avoid the sometimes hard, grueling, long road that leadership often requires. This week I returned from a visit to Cuba, where I connected with leaders who face significant challenges on a daily basis.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[738,478,7,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-effectiveness-2","category-featured","category-leadership","category-temptation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5388"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5391,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5388\/revisions\/5391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}