Ways to nullify Leadership - Avoidance

Avoidance is a sure-fire way to nullify leadership. An avoidant leader typically uses ignorance as an excuse for inactivity. “I didn’t know…” is the oft-repeated safety phrase of an avoidant person. Dan Rockwell calls this “selective in-attention”. One way avoidance shows up is by ‘passing the buck’, which is the antithesis of true leadership. Incidentally, avoidance will sometimes appear as empowerment. There is a difference.

I’m not suggesting that a leader know everything. However, a leader should know and share the most important things. For example - I once heard a leader say that he tells his direct reports, out of 100% of problems, only bring him the most important 10%. They are responsible for the other 90%. If someone else comes to him with something from the 90% he delegated, he never says, “I didn’t know…”. By the way, this leader founded a Fortune 100 company and is one of the richest people on the planet.

Another well-known CEO was once interviewed and asked about reviewing designs from people in his company. The interviewer assumed it must be great to have people come and present designs for review. This is what the CEO said:

No, it doesn’t work that way at all . . . if anybody ever brings in anything that surprises me, something’s wrong in the process.”

I’ve seen my own leadership nullified as a result of being avoidant. How can you take leadership responsibility in what you know and share?