---
title: "What makes a poor leader?"
url: https://www.simonwakeman.com/blog/2012/08/30/what-makes-a-poor-leader/
description: "Consultant and fractional COO for scale-up businesses. I help founders, leaders and investors in scaling businesses create sustainably high performing organisations."
published: 2012-08-30T21:33:27+00:00
modified: 2026-04-11T16:24:57+00:00
author: Simon Wakeman
---
# What makes a poor leader?

## What makes a poor leader?

I’ve been thinking about an interesting article I spotted on the [Harvard Business Review](http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/08/are_you_sure_youre_not_a_bad_b.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29&utm_content=Google+Reader) website earlier on today about what makes a bad leader.  
The research, based on a large-scale of business leaders, identified ten characteristics of poor leaders – as defined by 360 degree feedback . It notes that the characteristics typically exist in groups of three or four – as many of them are interlinked.  
The ten characteristics, in descending order of importance, are:

> -   Failure to inspire, owing to a lack of energy and enthusiasm.
> -   Acceptance of mediocre performance in place of excellent results.
> -   A lack of clear vision and direction.
> -   An inability to collaborate and be a team player.
> -   Failure to walk the talk.
> -   Failure to improve and learn from mistakes.
> -   An inability to lead change or innovate owing to a resistance to new ideas.
> -   A failure to develop others.
> -   Inept interpersonal skills.
> -   Displays of bad judgement that leads to poor decisions.

No surprises really, but all the same it’s good to see them based on real evidence rather than the jargon-heavy evidence-poor management babble that you find in spades online.  
But what struck me was the synonymous use of leader and boss in the article – making the assumption that a boss is always a leader, which is almost always the case, but also that a leader also needs to be a boss, which really isn’t the case.  
Leadership exists at all levels and scales – but the transferable skills of leadership are pervasive – and are something that everyone can work on developing and honing – not just those people with line management responsibilities.