5 Ways Incompetent Leaders Dis-Empower Good People

The page argues that incompetent leaders dis-empower good people by trying to control, exclude, and keep authority narrow. It says this creates frustration, blame, paranoia, anxiety, and helplessness, while skillful leaders give teammates more power through focus, choice, and feedback.

Reading notes

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• A desire for conformity drains, discourages, and demotivates people.
• Positional authority can become an egotistical need for control that dis-empowers others.
• Incompetent leaders are afraid of empowered people.
• Dis-empowerment leads to frustration, blame, paranoia, anxiety, and helplessness.
• One way leaders dis-empower others is by excluding them from decision-making.
• Another way is making people feel their experience, expertise, and talent do not matter.
• Leaders can also dis-empower by talking too much and keeping distance from others.
• Acting busy and avoiding front-line people are presented as forms of isolation.
• Treating people like ignorant tools includes creating policies without collaborating with them.
• Powerful leadership does not mean making everyone conform to the leader’s wishes.
• Real power gives power.
• Skillful leaders set limits that keep teammates focused on what matters.
• Skillful leaders create options with others and delegate final decisions to others.
• Skillful leaders have candid conversations before deciding.
• Skillful leaders seek and give feedback on behaviors and results.
• Leaders should reject the need to be liked and aim for influence and impact instead.
• Powerful people look for a way forward, not a way out.