The Comical Guide to Worst Leadership Practices: Flipping Failure into Coaching Wisdom
May 04, 2024
Neil Thubron and Jana Hendrickson
Ever wondered how to climb the ladder of worst leadership practices? My co-host, Jana Hendrickson, and I, Neil Thubron, have got your back with a hilariously ironic guide to being the coach nobody wants. We dish out the top ten tips to ensure your leadership is as ineffective as possible, from nurturing confusion by avoiding any semblance of goal-setting to perfecting the non-art of completely disregarding your team's needs. But be warned, this reverse psychology might just make you a better leader by spotlighting every no-go in the management playbook.
If you're ready to inject some humor into your leadership style, you're in the right place. Jana and I wrap up with a reminder of why laughter isn't just the best medicine; it's also a secret ingredient in fostering a vibrant team culture. This episode isn't just a series of chuckles, though—it's a clever twist on traditional coaching advice. By the time the curtain falls, you'll be armed with the wisdom of what truly not to do, and perhaps, how to flip these faux pas into coaching gold. Join us for a session where fun and leadership skills collide.
Ever wondered how to climb the ladder of worst leadership practices? My co-host, Jana Hendrickson, and I, Neil Thubron, have got your back with a hilariously ironic guide to being the coach nobody wants. We dish out the top ten tips to ensure your leadership is as ineffective as possible, from nurturing confusion by avoiding any semblance of goal-setting to perfecting the non-art of completely disregarding your team's needs. But be warned, this reverse psychology might just make you a better leader by spotlighting every no-go in the management playbook.
If you're ready to inject some humor into your leadership style, you're in the right place. Jana and I wrap up with a reminder of why laughter isn't just the best medicine; it's also a secret ingredient in fostering a vibrant team culture. This episode isn't just a series of chuckles, though—it's a clever twist on traditional coaching advice. By the time the curtain falls, you'll be armed with the wisdom of what truly not to do, and perhaps, how to flip these faux pas into coaching gold. Join us for a session where fun and leadership skills collide.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Coaching Skills for Leaders podcast with Jana Henderson and Neil Thubron. The purpose of the podcast is to help leaders anywhere develop their coaching skills to transform the lives of those they lead, as well as their own. Welcome to another episode of Coaching Skills for Leaders, and in this episode, we thought we'd do something for those leaders out there who don't want to be great coaches. So we thought we'd put an episode together with 10 tips on how to be a really poor coach as a leader. So let's, I think, we just kick off, should we?
Speaker 2:
just kick started, absolutely yeah, we obviously, you know, we do want to cater for our audience and we recognize that some people are just not that keen on coaching skills. So here's your episode and we have top our top 10 tips on how to be terrible in terms of your coaching skills in your leadership role. So my number one, neil, is fail to set goals. Do not ever set any goals for yourself, for your team, for the business, for the specific job or task. Just you know, don't bother setting any goals or objectives for the business, for the specific job or task. Just don't bother setting any goals or objectives for the team. Just let them wander aimlessly in their roles without any clear direction or purpose.
Speaker 1:
Oh, that's a great tip, and I think I would enhance that by saying and whatever you do, do not ask any of your team members, or anyone that you interact with, what their goals might be and what they'd like to achieve.
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah, you can't do that. Obviously, you do not want to care at all about the goals of your team members, personal or professional.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, because being a leader without coaching skills, being not knowing where you're going, that's a real asset.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, absolutely. You'll get a long way in being a bad leader that way.
Speaker 1:
Okay. So tip number one, great tip, and please make a note of these as we're going through them, because they're really going to help you be a poor coach as a leader. So I think the second one I would say a top tip is when someone walks in your office or when someone calls you up, ignore them, don't pay any attention to them at all, keep doing your email. You know they're coming with a problem, for sure they've got a problem, but you know you're, what you're doing is more important than what they're doing. You know, and and if you do start talking to them, if you do ask them what they want you know why have they, why have they darkened your door Then make sure that when you're interacting with them, you know you're on your phone because your messaging is going to be important. You're typing on your email and you're kind of, you're acknowledging you're listening, but you know you're not really listening.
Speaker 2:
No, definitely. It has to go in one ear, out the other, and I would absolutely Neil with this tip avoid eye contact at all costs.
Speaker 1:
Oh, that's a really good one. Avoid eye contact. Even look out the window when someone talks to you. Potentially, I would say if someone comes to you, don't ask them to sit down.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, no, definitely not. It's really important that feel uncomfortable in the totally. I mean you know you want to make sure that the person knows they're absolutely disturbing and disrupting you yeah and okay, so let's, let's do tip three yeah, I mine leads right into that.
Speaker 2:
I was going to say you know, if you want to be really terrible as a leader in this area, I would absolutely recommend that you create a culture of fear, blame and judgment. And so, whenever problems arise, then definitely focus on finding a team member that you can blame rather than finding a solution, and encourage a team culture where the members point fingers really at each other instead of fixing the issues. Yeah, you want to make sure that people always know that you are leading through intimidation and fear, that you know people are at fault usually and that failure is not acceptable yeah, I think that.
Speaker 1:
I think that's an excellent point for the leaders that want to be poor coaches. Is that judging, judging is really important.
Speaker 2:
Whenever?
Speaker 1:
someone brings something to you, you need to judge them on what they brought, and I love the concept of judge them and turn them around and make sure they're blaming other people in the team as well. It's not their fault, it's not their fault, it's the team member, it's the support team. It could be their customer, but it's definitely not their fault and it's definitely not my fault as a leader.
Speaker 2:
No, absolutely. And so you really want to create a culture where they don't even end up coming to you because, remember, they were disturbing to begin with. So you don't want them to come to you with problems, questions or ideas. Just point fingers at each other and, you know, basically quabble all day long. That'd be the ideal.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah. You're doing a great job, then, as a leader and and definitely not doing using coach skills as a leader definitely not doing using coach skills as a leader. So number four, I think, is really key if you want to be great at this skill is, when someone tells you something, make sure you tell other people about it. So if someone shares with you a secret or they share with you something that's concerning them, it's really important that you then share that with one of your colleagues, or maybe their peers, so that you know they. It makes you look important because you've got that knowledge and it's given you the opportunity to share what someone's given with you. That's really important. I don't know what your thoughts are on that one.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, no, I think you you mustn't create an environment of you know, confidentiality or trust, right? So really I would do it either way. Right, Like? So, either you want to take the secretive information or the kind of more vulnerable information from team members and disseminate it as widely as possible, maybe through like an email that goes out to everybody or some you know very impactful communicative way, and you certainly, on the other hand, you want to just operate on this kind of needs to know basis. So don't tell people too much, right, and you know, don't give them too much information and only you decide where and when you know people would learn about the piece of information that might be relevant but not everybody should know. You do not want to create transparency. You know what it's like. Then there's just more trouble when everybody knows what's going on.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's a really good point. It does go hand in glove with developing that skill of holding cards close to yourself. So you've got all the information 100% Okay.
Speaker 2:
So tip number five yeah, I think another one would be really to make sure that your team is definitely not getting any work-life balance. So what I mean is you do want to make sure that they are working 60 plus hours a week, that they have to eat during their lunch break aka they don't have a break because we all know that that ends up being much more than an hour usually, and we don't want to waste time. And so if you want to be really efficient at bad leadership, you want to make sure that you work your staff to the ground and make sure that they know that work comes first always.
Speaker 1:
So when anybody comes and has some sort of personal issue, absolutely just say no and explain that they're here for the job, not for their personal life that's a really good point, because the mistake leaders who are good at coaching make is that when someone comes in and they've got a personal problem or they've got, they might need some time away from the office and and maybe they need a little bit of listening to to help them with. You know that that's just weak leadership. That's just weak leadership. It's poor productivity. You know these people are paid to do a job and it's important that they work those, the minimum, the hours expected, and you don't expect them to go home before you do anyway.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely no. They should be there before you and leave after you for sure, because you're the boss. That's the whole point. Right? Like you worked your way up to that level. Now it's their time to pull their weight.
Speaker 1:
OK, so what else do you have?
Speaker 1:
tip number six here we go, let's go tip number six it's really important if you're going to be good at this skill of developing your uh, your non-coaching skills as a leader is that you have favorites in your team. It's really important that when someone comes in and they are presenting an issue or concern, so why can't you be more like John? They're great at what they do. You know, actually, what I'm going to. Let me get John's opinion on this. You know it's important that you have favorites and the people you really don't like that you you kind of ignore them. You don't find time for them. You make sure you don't listen to them or don't help them. You just focus on. You know the people who are like you, who are who, who are playing up. You know the ones that, the ones that really want to spend time with you.
Speaker 2:
They're the ones you want to spend time with a hundred percent and the other ones should know that they're not on the list. I think you know when, when there's a good client coming in as in like a good project, you definitely want to give that to the people that you know will deliver. The people that you know have good standards for you know of work that you trust and, um, yeah, only give it to your favorites for sure. I mean, we all know everybody has favorites, so might as well be open about it yeah, exactly, and why would you waste time on people that you don't like?
Speaker 1:
Exactly.
Speaker 2:
And so you know you might need them a little bit to do the little tasks here and there, but I wouldn't put a lot of effort into training them or anything like that.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, 100%, great, great tip. So tip number seven, number seven I think number seven should be that you must make absolutely sure to have no passion or vision at all for the work that y'all are doing. So you know a great leader that is terrible at coaching you want to make sure that you're displaying that you have no direction, really Like you don't care where this business goes, where the team goes. You know, I think you want to lead in a way that suggests that you're making time rather than marking time, sorry rather than driving towards some compelling future that everybody can be excited about and on board. I think that's just a little bit. You know a little bit new agey. You know the whole visioning. So I feel like you want to just be down to the facts, buy your time and just move, move through daily life as it is yeah, people should know what they need to do.
Speaker 1:
They don't need to. You know the the vision, vision, something that you know is in the cloud somewhere. That's what. That's what people talk about in, uh, yoga retreats and stuff like that exactly folks about that in the office.
Speaker 1:
But I think this also it's because it's similar to the point number one about not having clear direction, but I think it. I think it enhances on that, which is, um, you've got to be. If you want to be really good at this skill, you've got to be negative. Any anything that looks like it could be a good idea. You've got to make sure you rip that idea down. You're gonna make sure that you know yeah, we tried that before. That's not your, that's not your lane, that's you know. Look, I'll do the, I'll do the thinking, you do the delivery. Don't come, come to me, that's perfect.
Speaker 2:
Oh my God. Yes, that's exactly it. Stay in your lane, don't think, just execute. Don't bring me your lofty blue sky thinking ideas. You want to make clear that you're not interested in getting excited, having passion or having a major vision. We don't need to know the why every single day yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:
So I think that's a really good enhancement of that. You know, don't know where you go, but make sure if someone does come up with some positive ideas about how you, you rip them down fast. You don't let exactly. So then, uh, tip number, tip number eight yeah, I've got a long list here, but I think a really important skill is is to talk down to people. It's a really important skill to make people feel.
Speaker 1:
We kind of touched on this, I suppose, in one of the other tips, but it's you know, I saw this word come up in some YouTube videos watching about rapport, and I listened to it and I thought what is that all about? You know, that is definitely something we do not want in in this type of environment. If you want to be a great leader in and with poor coaching skills, do not build rapport, do not, uh, do not try and connect with people or understand people at a level you know well. In fact, don't try and understand them at all. It's up to them to do what you tell them to do. And so, yeah, I think that's really important make, make people feel uncomfortable, talk down to them and, yeah, don't, don't build connection with them yeah, definitely, I would call it like.
Speaker 2:
You know, really you want to focus on showing zero empathy, so no concern for their personal professional challenges, anything like that, keep everything strictly business and have no feelings. But you know this, this talking down is really, really important because it's going to make people feel like they know where their place is. You want to make sure that they know what their place is Right, and so I think that's a really, really important thing. And part along with that comes this one way communication Right. So don't encourage them to communicate your way at all. You really want to make sure that it's top down and that's all that matters. And you know we're not interested in team building. We're not interested in having a sort of a culture where we focus on people's strengths, anything like that. We just really really need to get the job done. Strengths, anything like that.
Speaker 1:
We just really really need to get the job done, and we you know you're leading with the firm hand, not coaching skills, and I have written down here no, empathy actually is another tip, so we'll roll that into this one, but I think it's um a really important phrase to use it. To really master this skill and become, like you know, a master in this area is pull yourself together. That's a really important phrase, you know. Pull yourself together and just go get on with it or stop being so sensitive. You know, those are two really important things.
Speaker 2:
That's really great, absolutely.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think I mean tip number nine. To me is one thing that we haven't really hit on at all before is, as the leader, you obviously don't want to delegate any work, right? So you're not interested in growing your people. You don't need to give them challenges, as we said, they just need to get the job done. So, uh, please refuse to delegate, because clearly you know better than anyone that no one else could do the job as well as you do, right? So if you're trying to pass it on, it's just gonna be inefficient and and so definitely do not delegate yeah, and I think that's really important because it's a threat if you delegate.
Speaker 1:
It's a threat because people might be able to do your job and therefore you're less valuable. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
And you know if you've got to be so careful about developing people in a, as you're not delegating, you really want to stay on top of micromanaging everything right. So be sure that people know that you're always sitting on their neck, like on their back and or whatever the expression is, and that you you know and that you assume rightfully that your team can't do anything right without you constantly having oversight. And definitely in this part as well, for me is to not trust them to make decisions or handle any tasks on their own.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that autonomy thing is just something it's not. It's just overrated. It's weakness, it's weakness. There's no way you want to be used up.
Speaker 2:
All right, tip number 10. One more, we've got one more.
Speaker 1:
And again I want to kind of leave people with a really important tip that for leaders that are who want to be really poor coaches. So you know, if you want to be really poor coaches, it's vital that you never, ever, ask anyone for feedback. It's so important that you don't ask your boss for feedback, your team for feedback, your customers for feedback. You don't want to know whether you're doing a poor job or bad, because you know you know you're good enough, you know you don't and the last thing you want is to seek feedback from anyone a hundred percent, and likewise for the whole team.
Speaker 2:
So I wouldn't implement any like 360s or anything like. If people ask for feedback, they'll just as you know, they will just come up with all the stuff that's wrong about everybody. So who needs, who has time for that? I absolutely agree. Do not ever ask for feedback in any shape or form.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so and hopefully you know, there's just there's 10 tips there, but there's so many more that you could focus on if you really want to be a master, if you really want to focus on mastery in this skill of being a leader. Who who is a poor coach? But hopefully those 10 have been useful, uh inspiring, even right inspiring yeah and it's affirming yeah, and we hope it's. It's it's got some ideas with a slightly different audience than our, our normal audience on this. But we'd love your feedback, obviously, of course, as usual.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and because we're pretty bad at this being bad thing. So we would like to hear your thoughts, but only the good stuff, so don't tell us the bad stuff. It's a pleasure to come back to you with a different take on coaching skills for leaders, and we hope that you tune in again next time. Neil, it was a lot of fun. I hope you listeners know we had our tongue in our cheeks, quite literally and metaphorically speaking, and that we are here to inspire you to do all the right things and maybe not what we talked about all right, big part of life is having fun, so let's absolutely leave you with that thought.
Speaker 2:
But great to see you again you too, have a great rest of your day, and thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1:
Bye thank you for listening to coaching skills for leaders podcast with jana and neil. If you found the conversation useful, please share with your colleagues and friends. Please also leave us a rating and a review and if you would like to connect with us directly to discuss your own or your business needs, you will find our contact details in the show notes below.
