In light of my experience and the continuing scandals – NSA/Prism and Lloyds PPI complaint handling – I have been reflecting-grappling with the leadership, accountability, and integrity.

As such I wish to share with you my take on the seven key differences between effective and ineffective leaders.

Let’s explore effective vs ineffective leadership examples and how to combat them.

Key Takeaways:

  • Clarity and Communication: Effective leaders are clear on their goals and adept at communicating them, modeling the values and behaviors they expect from their team.
  • Addressing Core Issues: They courageously tackle pressing issues, while ineffective leaders avoid them, preferring comfort over necessary confrontation.
  • Realistic Understanding: Successful leaders seek a well-rounded understanding of situations, encouraging honest input, whereas ineffective leaders promote only their agenda.
  • Positive Problem-Solving: They address challenges in ways that build team esteem and goodwill, unlike ineffective leaders who often undermine team dynamics with poor conflict management.
  • Systemic Well-being: Effective leadership includes a focus on the well-being of all stakeholders, in contrast to ineffective leaders who prioritize self-interest.
  • Accountability: Competent leaders practice self-accountability before expecting it from others, which is not the case with ineffective leadership.
  • Integrity as Essential: Effective leaders understand integrity is crucial for performance and workability, while ineffective leaders treat integrity as optional, leading to trust issues within the organization.

Effective Leadership Examples that You Should Follow

1. Effective leaders are clear on what matters, communicate what matters, and model the desired values and behaviours. Ineffective leaders are either not clear on what matters or simply not able to able-willing to rule some stuff out. Ineffective leaders suck at communicating what matters. And they don’t live-model-embody the fine sounding values, beliefs, and behaviours that they talk about.

2. Effective leaders name and insist on dealing with the most important issues no matter how unpleasant these issues are. Ineffective leaders find all kinds of reasons and excuses for not dealing with the real issues and instead spend their time on what they are comfortable with.

3. Effective leaders focus on getting a rounded-realistic-fact based picture of reality. And as such they give real thought to who needs to take part in the conversation, and how to create a context that calls forth the ‘truth of each participant’. Please note that feelings are facts! Ineffective leaders are drunk on their own importance and thus push their views, their agenda, on to the favoured few that they invite to the conversation.

4. Effective leaders deal with the thorny issues in a way that tends to build the self-esteem, confidence, learning, and goodwill of their people. Ineffective leaders issue orders, discount the concerns-views of their people, and make threats thus rupture one of the most critical pillars of an effective organisation: relationship and emotional affinity and loyalty.

5. Effective leaders think about the well-being of the wider system – all stakeholders inside and outside the business. Ineffective leaders focus on what matters to them and their favoured constituency.

6. Effective leaders first hold themselves accountable. And by doing so they create the powerful access to holding their people accountable. Ineffective leaders hold others to account but not themselves. And sometimes they don’t even hold others accountable for fear of being confronted with their own lack of accountability.

7. Effective leaders get the critical importance of integrity. As such they put in place powerful ‘instruments’ that will: detect any ‘out of integrity’ ways of showing up in the world; and call the effective leader to get back into integrity quickly and clean up any mess s/he has made. Ineffective leaders don’t get that integrity is essential to ‘workability’ and ‘performance’ and as such there is little fit between what they say and what they do. For ineffective leaders, integrity is optional.

Ineffective Leadership Examples and Definition:

Ineffective Leadership is defined by a consistent failure to inspire, guide, or maintain a functional team or organization. Examples include leaders who:

  • Communicate Poorly: Leaders who can’t articulate the organization’s vision or goals, leading to confusion and lack of direction.
  • Avoid Accountability: Those who place blame elsewhere and refuse to take responsibility for their actions or decisions.
  • Lack Decision-Making Skills: Leaders who hesitate to make decisions or make poor ones due to a lack of information or insight.
  • Fail to Listen: Those who disregard the input of team members, stifling collaboration and innovation.
  • Are Ethically Compromised: Leaders who lack integrity, making choices that benefit themselves at the organization’s expense.
  • Resist Change: Leaders who cling to outdated practices and are unwilling to adapt to new challenges or opportunities.
  • Mismanage Relationships: Those who create a toxic workplace by playing favorites, not respecting boundaries, or not recognizing achievements, which can lead to high turnover and low morale.

Effective vs. Ineffective Leadership: An In-depth Comparison

Effective Leadership is marked by a keen sense of direction, communication, and embodiment of core values and behaviors. Leaders who excel recognize and tackle critical issues head-on, ensuring their approach enhances team confidence, learning, and loyalty.

They maintain a comprehensive, realistic view of the organizational landscape, considering the well-being of all stakeholders and consistently holding themselves accountable, which in turn legitimizes their expectation of accountability from others.

A hallmark of effective leadership is the recognition of integrity as a non-negotiable pillar, with mechanisms in place to ensure alignment between actions and stated values.

Ineffective Leadership, on the other hand, is characterized by a lack of clarity and the inability to prioritize and address significant challenges. Such leaders often shy away from uncomfortable truths, focusing on trivial matters.

They impose their perspectives without creating space for open dialogue, often undermining team morale and loyalty through dismissive or authoritarian behavior. Ineffective leaders tend to overlook the broader system’s well-being, focusing narrowly on self-interest and a select group.

They frequently fail to model accountability and view integrity as an optional trait, leading to a disconnect between their words and actions, ultimately diminishing trust and organizational effectiveness.

How does this resonate with your experience? Please note the word ‘experience’ and specifically the phrase ‘your experience’ with effective and ineffective leadership.

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