He Who Cried Wolf

I once had to work with someone who called themselves a leader. They had an innumerable set of poor leadership skills. For this reason I am immensely grateful I got the chance to work with them because I learned so much. I learned more than almost any book I've ever read on the topic.

One of the traits this person possessed was that everything in their eyes was a doomsday crisis. She was consistently unstable in her ability to manage things not going well, from the smallest to the largest deviations from target. Her reaction was the same regardless of the real impact of the issue and everything turned into an emotional fire drill with endless meetings, phone calls, and what she called "remediations."

This leadership style was demoralizing for the team. Not only that, eventually, no one knew what were actually the important problems to work on. And then finally no one really believed or respected her.

This is bad "leadership". As a leader there should be nearly nothing that can rock your boat. Your even keel and level headed approach to solving problems is what your team needs. Your team will draw strength from your strength and your strength is demonstrated most when you are faced with undesirable situations from the smallest to the largest.

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