18 leadership mistakes executives see across industries

Whether your company sells software or provides hands-on accounting services, some things are the same: leadership mistakes. We’re people, after all, and we have our own motivations and understanding of how business works. The good news is that we can learn from other people’s mistakes, so we don’t make them ourselves. That’s the idea behind what you’re reading now. We asked our Fast Company Impact Council members—all insightful and successful leaders in their own right—to share wisdom they earned from making or seeing others make mistakes. No matter the industry. The 18 member responses we’re sharing here can shine a light on how to be a better leader at your organization. 1. CONFUSE PERFORMANCE WITH LEADERSHIP POTENTIAL The leadership mistake I see most often is confusing performance with leadership potential. The person who delivers the best work isn’t always the person who can inspire, develop, and align a team. Too many organizations promote based on output, then wonder why both the new leader and their team struggle. Leadership is about creating a room full of people who can succeed without you. — Emily Kortlang, Yerba Madre 2. SILENCE IS NOT ALIGNMENT Silence in a global organization means almost nothing, and leaders who treat it as alignment are setting themselves up for failure. People go quiet for hundreds of reasons, and agreement is rarely one of them. Cultural norms, power dynamics, the sense that a decision is already made before the meeting starts—all of it looks identical to buy-in if you are not paying attention. I run a design community of over a thousand people across multiple geographies, and the most important discipline I have developed is creating explicit structures for dissent. If you are not pushing for honest disagreement, you are not leading. You are just broadcasting. — Arin Bhowmick, SAP 3. NOT MAKING A DECISION IS STILL A DECISION Early in my career in the Coast Guard, I learned that not making a decision is still a decision, and