Blind Spots That Destroy Teams

In the last episode, we talked about two of the problems that often lurk below the surface. Number one, we talked about leaders that lead up well, but lead down poorly. Number two, we talked about the leaders that hit the goals, but hurt the team. If you haven't listened to those yet, pop back and grab the last episode. Today, in this episode, we're gonna cover three and four. Number three, sometimes you have leaders in your organization that care about the people, but they tolerate underperformance. And number four, you'll have leaders that keep control, but kill the ownership. Let's dive into these two in detail, and then we're gonna try to solve these problems before they hurt your culture. Number three, you're gonna wanna watch for leaders deeper in your organization that do care about people, but they tolerate underperformance. And this one is, in many ways, opposite of the first two that we talked about. It usually comes from a leader that has a really good heart, but even though they have a good heart, this actually still creates a big problem. What you'll see is you'll have a leader that genuinely does care about people, at least they believe they do, and they think they're doing a good job, but they don't know that what they think they're doing

is actually hurting. And what they'll do is they'll listen to their leaders, they'll empathize with the people that report to them. Their heart is in the right place, but despite their effort and care, they end up unintentionally hurting the team and the very people that are trying to help end up in a worse place. Why? Because they won't confront what needs to be corrected. This is a common problem. They care about the team and in an effort to keep everybody happy, they avoid tough conversations. They may excuse laziness, and they actually lower the bar occasionally just to keep the peace. And they think they're being loving, they think that they're being kind, but what they're really being is they're unclear. And what feels like love is avoidance in disguise. They think, hey, I'm being nice to you, I'm not being hard on you, but they're actually letting problems go without addressing the problems and that creates even bigger problems. And here's how you'll see it play out. Some times you're in a meeting and you've got a team leader that shows up late again. And so the leader might either ignore it

or they might joke about it, but doesn't address it. There might be a big problem on the team and it's obvious to everyone in the room, but the leader doesn't talk about the problem. The leader maybe intuitively wants to be liked more than they care about being effective. And this is one of the reasons why it's incredibly deadly because in your culture, if you've got a good hearted leader that won't address problems, they're gonna create what many have called sanctioned incompetence. What is sanctioned incompetence? You can look it up online and read a lot about it, but a real simple definition is it simply allowing underperformance without correction. It's letting something go on your team that is not right, is not helpful, doesn't move the mission forward and just letting it exist. And you've probably seen this at some point. You might even work right now with a team member that's underperforming and everybody around knows she's not carrying her weight or he's not getting it done and you've got a leader that doesn't address the issue. Over time, what happens is this leader unintentionally lowers the bar and basically says, we tolerate low performance. What is your culture? Your culture is a combination of what you create and what you allow.

It's what you expect and what you tolerate. And so if you allow people to show up late, they'll show up later. If you allow people to miss deadlines, they'll keep missing deadlines. If you allow people to underperform, you're not creating drive on your team, you're creating resentment. I tell our team this all the time. What you permit, you promote. Whatever you allow, you're gonna get more of it. And so if you permit underperformance, your culture, your team members, they're gonna stop striving for excellence and they're gonna settle for mediocrity. You're lowering the standard. If you can allow me to talk about my faith for just a moment. Jesus, the Son of God, when he came, John 1 tells us he came full of grace and truth. I like this. He was full of grace, forgiveness, kindness, and truth. A great leader is gonna be full of grace, we care about people, we forgive, we have compassion, and truth. In other words, we care deeply and we challenge directly. That's actually loving. In fact, I would say the most loving thing you can do for one of your team members

is not protect their feelings. The most loving thing you can do is tell them the truth. In the same way, if someone comes to me and says, hey, I see a problem, Craig. They're not being unloving if they try to help me get better. They're being unloving if they don't. Grace and truth. So if we as leaders just try to protect our team members' feelings, what are we doing? We're actually limiting their impact potential. And so our role as leaders is what? Is to tell the truth in love and help bring out the best in the people around us. So what do we watch for if we've got team members that are afraid to confront the problems? What do we watch for? I'm gonna give you three things. The first one's very direct. Watch for responsibility avoidance. If you have a leader that knows the issues, knows there's a problem, doesn't address the problem, you have a problem with that leader. Watch for responsibility avoidance. And you'll see it. The longer you lead, there'll be some people that just kind of let the problems float and hope the problems get better. Small problems typically don't go away. Most of the time, small problems become big problems.

So look for responsibility avoidance. Look for double standards. Sometimes you'll have a leader that's gonna hold a few people accountable, but others get a pass. Why do others get a pass? Well, maybe because they're nice. Maybe because they're new. Maybe because they're a friend. Maybe because they're really high maintenance and draining to confront. Whatever it is, watch for double standards. And the principle is this. You'll never have a consistently healthy culture with inconsistent inputs. Your culture, your people won't perform with a certain standard if your standard is not clear. You'll never have a consistently healthy culture with inconsistent inputs. So watch for a lack of follow-through. Watch for double standards. And then this is super important. Watch for frustrated high performers. If you're high performers, the best players on your team, if they're consistently forced to carry the load and to make up for other people that aren't doing their part, eventually either they won't care or they won't stay. Eventually they're gonna say, hey, I can't carry this forever. And they're just gonna kind of lower their own standards. Or they're gonna say, I'm gonna go somewhere else

where I can do more and be more valued. What do you do when you have a leader that won't confront? How do you help them? What you wanna do is you wanna teach them that clarity is kindness. Their goal is to be like, I wanna be really kind. That actually being truthful and being clear, that is kindness. And that's the way you're gonna help your team. Like, and just to give you a couple examples, imagine like I'm sick and I go to the doctor and the doctor looks at me and says, he knows in his mind, Craig's sick. Maybe he's going, but I don't wanna hurt his feelings. And so he doesn't tell me. That's silly. Any doctor's gonna say, you're sick and this is what you need to do to get better. Or those of you that are athletes, if you've got a good coach and maybe your swing is off and so you can't hit. Well, because you can't hit, you're hurting the team. The coach is not going to ignore that. It's not loving to just say, oh, no big deal. Maybe the swing will get better. No, that's irresponsible. And so the same is absolutely true in leadership. If there is a problem, you have grace and truth. You're graceful, you're caring, but you tell the truth. The loving thing to do is to tell the truth.

Let's say you're gonna have a meeting to tell the truth to somebody. You're gonna have a developmental conversation. I've covered this before, but I wanna give you just kind of a brief overview. You go into meeting and you're gonna have a kind and clear meeting. You're not gonna be buddy-buddy. When you come in, don't say, hey, what's going on? Tell me about your weekend. I always like to just go be very direct and just get right into it. And you're gonna say some combination of this framework that I'm gonna give you. You're gonna say something like, hey, things aren't going well. Or, hey, we're not hitting your numbers. We're gonna tell them something off the top. We're not being rude, we're just being lovingly direct. Things aren't going well and I wanna help you succeed. I wanna help you win. I wanna help you get there, whatever. And so here's what needs to happen. And then you tell them, here's what needs to change. It might be attitude, it might be behavior, it might be when you turn your numbers in, it might be how you achieve your numbers. But here's what specifically needs to improve by when. And then here's what I'm gonna do to help you get there. I'm gonna get you a mentor,

we're gonna get training, whatever it is. And then you tell them, if you hit this target by this time, we're gonna celebrate, great job. And if you don't, we're gonna make a change. And let me just say it again, because this is super, super important. We're not being buddies, we're being direct. Hey, things aren't going well. that we need to improve. I care about you, so I'm here to help you improve. Here's what specifically needs to happen and by when. Here's what we're gonna do to help you get there. If you get there, awesome, great job. We'll keep on crushing things. And if you don't, we're gonna need to make a change. That's actually very, very kind and very loving. To not do that, if you don't do that, what's gonna happen is they're gonna continue to frustrate you, and one day you're gonna come in and go, I can't take it anymore! And that's not good for anybody. Clarity is kindness. This is something to watch for. If you've been leading long enough and your team gets big enough, and let me just warn you, what's gonna happen, at some point, you're five years in and now you've got 12 employees instead of two, or you've got 60 employees instead of 10 or whatever.

What's gonna happen at some point is you'll probably over-promote someone. You're gonna over-promote an under-productive leader. Just because they were effective somewhere else doesn't mean they're a great leader, but we tend to think, hey, they were great in this role, so we're gonna put them as a leader. And this happens all the time. I've done it, you'll do it, we all do it, we don't like it, but it tends to happen. And it's been called the Peter Principle. The Peter Principle, you can read more about it, but people tend to rise to the level of their incompetence. It's horrible, but that's kind of what it is. A person who's great in sales, like going, she's the best in sales, so we promote her to be a sales manager. Well, she may not be a great manager at all. And this is ridiculously common, especially in larger or more mature organizations. And you have to really be aware of that when you over-promote somebody. Now, if you have a team leader and they won't hold other people accountable, it's your role to help coach that leader to move them to a better place. If you've got a team leader and they're not addressing the other problems, they won't hold other people accountable and they won't deal with the problem,

eventually the problem isn't the problem deeper in the organization, eventually that person is the problem. I'm gonna say the same thing to you if I can just say it. If you don't deal with the problem team member deeper in the organization, eventually the problem team member isn't the problem, eventually you're the problem. And I wanted to just say it that way because I've been there before, we've all been there, we've got to call it what it is. Quick drink because you're getting me riled up. If you have a problem and you're hesitant to confront it, remind yourself, real leadership means caring enough to confront. Grace and truth. So you've got the leaders that they care about people but they tolerate underperformance. The fourth thing we're gonna talk about, the final one is this. You've got some leaders that keep control but they kill ownership. They keep control but they kill ownership deeper in the organization. And again, this is a real common problem. You may not even know about it because these leaders, they really care. They care so much that they're overly controlling. And unfortunately their deep care doesn't confront into like empowering others

but it converts to being too controlling of other people. And the reason is because they care so much and it feels scary to trust other people because they feel like it's safer if they keep control. But here's an important principle. What feels like control to them is interpreted as distrust to their teams. What feels like control, like I'm gonna control the outcome, I'm being controlling. What it feels like to their team members, like, hey, I don't trust you to get this done. You're not good enough, smart enough, capable enough so I've got to do it myself. And again, you probably won't notice this at first because that leader on your team, they have a high expectations and they create some early wins but make no mistake about it. When they hold on too tightly, they may think they're helping, they may think they're being effective but they're inadvertently doing three things. They're limiting their team, they're suppressing initiative and they're lowering the ceiling. Let's talk about them one by one. If they're too controlling, number one is they are limiting leadership development. When one of your leaders deeper in the organization holds all the control,

it's almost impossible for the leaders under them to grow and get better. You'll see this sometime. You've got a high potential leader and if you don't give them the chance to lead, if they don't get the reps that they need, if they're always watching the leader above them but they're not leading, it's an incredible problem because you've got high potential leaders deep in the organization and if they don't have the freedom to grow, have the freedom to lead, either they won't grow or they won't stay every single time. In fact, a controlling leader is one of the fastest way to get rid of high potential leaders because high potential leaders need the chance to lead. What do we talk about a lot? Where do you find great leaders? Remember, we don't find great leaders, you build them, you build them and you don't build them by having them. Watch you do it all the time. You build them by giving them the chance to lead. I'll give you an unusual example. I've been a pilot for several years now. I probably studied under nine or 10, maybe even 11 or 12 different instructors. I got my private pilot's license, I got my instrument rating, I got a type rating. I recently got my commercial rating.

All the way back to private, I had a couple of extremes. I had one guy that had 21,000 hours and then I had a couple of newer instructors that had like 400 hours, maybe 500 hours. There was one guy I took only one lesson from, only one lesson. He was a brand new CFI instructor and he wouldn't let me fly anything. He always took control. He wouldn't let me taxi the plane. And why? He was so worried because he was inexperienced and he had to have all the control. Then I was flying with this guy that had 21,000 hours and he let me do everything. I mean, I'm like coming in with rough landings and he's not worried, not nervous. I'm like, aren't you gonna help? And he'd just sit there and smile. He goes, if I hold the controls, you'll never learn to fly. He said it over and over again. If I hold the controls, you'll never learn to fly. I was flying with the guy one time and I said like, what could I do to scare you? And he's sitting right seat. I'm flying up there new and kind of scared. I said, what could I do to scare you? He goes, well, nothing. Like, what do you mean nothing? He goes, nothing.

He goes, I've done this so long. You turn the plane upside down, whatever you do, I'd get us out of it. And I said, I couldn't do anything. He said, well, you're bigger than I am. So if you locked your arms and tried to drive it into ground, maybe I couldn't break your arms and you could kill us that way. But that's the only thing. And I remember sitting there thinking, okay, that's like amazing leadership. When you've been around so long, you realize you have the ability to lead through most things. And if you take the controls, then other people can't learn to fly the plane. So I'm gonna just kind of use that as an example to inspire you. You have leaders around you that have more in you, but you haven't trusted them yet. And the reason is you think, well, if I delegate it to them, they might not be very good at it. And that's true. So I'm gonna ask you like, what's the worst that could happen? Well, the worst thing that could happen is actually if you don't delegate at all, because if you don't delegate at all, you're not gonna create leaders.

So you have to learn to go ahead and give up some control, maybe even lower your standards a little bit, let them learn, let them get better. And then one day they'll be flying great. So the leaders that keep control, they limit leadership development. The second thing they do is they suppress initiative. Why? If you have a leader doing it all, they're doing all the thinking and all the heavy lifting, the other leaders stop thinking for themselves. What's gonna happen is they're gonna wait, they're gonna hesitate. Eventually they disengage. Why? Because they've learned their ideas don't really matter that much at all. And what happens, a controlling leader is gonna kill creativity. Control kills creativity, which eventually kills motivation and buy-in. If someone's controlling everything, the great leaders beneath them don't feel like they have any ability to make a difference. And that's why so many people don't take initiative because they don't feel trusted. They won't lead if they've only been told to follow orders. Let me say it this way. They won't act like owners if they're just treated like employees.

You have to give them the chance to own things. And these ineffective leaders that are in your organization, they can cost you a lot because they're gonna limit progress of others. These controlling leaders suppress initiative. And then the third thing they do is they lower the ceiling. Whenever you've got a few leaders that control everything, they slow the progress, I promise you. The reason is because they only have so much bandwidth. They may be really talented, but they can't make all the decisions. Progress starts to slow. And if everything depends on some leader out there, then that leader becomes the lid in his or her area. So how do you solve the problem? Again, let's get real practical. The first thing you wanna do is you wanna teach them not to delegate tasks, but to delegate authority. And there's a difference. I've said it a million times over. I'll say it a million more times. So, so important. A lot of leaders think they're delegating when they delegate tasks. Go do this thing, junior leader, just like I told you to. That's not true delegation. True delegation is delegating authority. It's like, hey, I trust you. Go figure out how to get it done. There's a big difference.

When you delegate tasks, you're creating followers. You're basically training people to do what you told them to do. When you delegate authority, like, hey, I believe in you. I trust you. You're creating other leaders, people who think for themselves and get things done. And so you're not just giving them an assignment. You're giving them responsibility. You're not just telling them what to do, but you're giving them the freedom to create a plan. And let me just tell you this. This doesn't mean you send them off. and go like, I'll check with you when it's all done. You don't do that. You're gonna coach them. You're gonna watch them. You're gonna give them feedback along the way. You're gonna help them tweak it. You might ask them some questions before you just set them loose. Like, okay, go create a plan and let's talk about your plan. Like, who are you gonna ask for advice? What kind of budget are you thinking about for this? What kind of timeline? What do you think you can get done and by when? And then, well, what if that doesn't work? How are you gonna adjust? What's your fallback plan?

After the project, you're gonna meet with them too. And you're not just gonna say, great job or that was horrible. You're gonna say, hey, what went well? What'd you learn from it? What will you do differently next time? Now, what if they don't do great? Spoiler alert, a lot of times they won't. And you have to look at it and say, that's not a total failure. That's growth in motion. Because when you're delegating authority and when you're developing team members, the goal isn't perfection. The goal is progress and ownership. You're gonna teach them. Delegating responsibility and we have to teach our team members who are too controlling, teach them to embrace imperfection as a part of the progress. It just is. Help them believe the truth that you're not looking for immediate, flawless execution. You're looking for growth. You're looking for confidence. You're looking for future multiplication. And remind yourself, remind your team, you can have control or you can have growth, but you can't have both. John Maxwell always said, if someone can do something 80% as well as you,

give it to them. I admire, respect John. He's probably right. I say, hey, if they can do it 70% with potential momentum, give it to them. In other words, like I actually need to move faster. And so I'm gonna say, if they can do it 70% and they've got potential upside, hey, give it to them. And don't just assume they're gonna do it well, stay involved. And if they do it 70% this time, next time it might be 75. One day it's 95% as well as you. One day they're doing 120% of what you did because they're becoming experts. You're gonna help make them great. Now, some are gonna say, okay, what if we make our leaders great and they leave? What if we help them become great and they leave and go to work somewhere else? It's a fair question. A better question is, what if you limit them and they stay? What if you don't make them great and they stay? Let's review the big ideas. Super important, I'm gonna slow it down. We talked about four over the last couple of episodes. Number one, you have leaders who lead up well but lead down poorly. They're impressive with you, but they're discouraging to their own team members. They know how to manage up,

but they don't know how to lead down. And if you're not intentional, you'll promote performance and you'll never notice the damage that happens beneath. You gotta watch for those. Number two, you have team members that hit the goal but hurt the team. They hit all the goals, but the team's not healthy. They deliver results, but they don't genuinely care for the people. And if you allow your leaders to obsess about results but not care about people, eventually you lose both. Big issue. Number three, you got some team leaders that care about people, but because they care so much, they tolerate underperformance. They're kind, but they're unclear. Remember, clarity is kind. Whatever you permit, you tend to promote. You have to help them see that. And over time, if they don't confront lovingly, they're gonna quietly corrupt the culture that matters so much. The fourth problem is you've got those that keep control, but they kill the ownership. These are the leaders that hold on too tight, that protect the outcomes. But instead of building leaders, they're actually limiting growth. The control may feel safe,

but trust is what builds capacity. Now, this is maybe the most important thing that we've talked about. So I want you to listen carefully. You will see these problems in your organization. If you lead for four years, five years, six years, seven years, if you're a part of a growing organization, you're gonna see someone who's too controlling. You're gonna see someone that doesn't confront problems. You're gonna see someone that's too hard on their team or someone that doesn't engage with their team. You're gonna see these problems. You probably will see them now. I'm gonna tell you right now, do not weaponize this content against your team. Don't come in there swinging hard. You know, I saw on a Craig Griff Show leadership podcast this and you're that, and you come in there like, I literally could see someone deeper in my organization going. And he said that you do not weaponize this content. Your goal is not to take shots. Your goal is not to criticize. Your goal is not to tear things down. Your goal is to love people and make things better. You don't come in with an attitude to point out problems. You come in to bring solutions. You come in to make the place better. Do not weaponize this and come in pointing fingers. If anything, you might wanna.

point some fingers at yourself. Because we all have these problems, and I'll come back to that. What you wanna do is you wanna be prayerful, be wise, be patient. If you've got some big problems deep in the organization, they didn't become big overnight. They grew slowly. So you probably won't solve them overnight. Sometimes it takes patience. You've gotta work with others. And big issue is this. You may see some problems in some team members deeper down, but if you have eyes to see, you might see some of these problems in yourself. The truth is I've seen all of these problems in me at different times. I've been too intense and not caring enough. I've had problems that I just didn't wanna deal with, and I'm tolerated underperformance for way, way, way too long. I've been too controlling and not empowering enough. And so don't just come swinging and point at everyone else that they didn't get it right, but have the courage to look in the mirror and see, what does God wanna show me? Where am I vulnerable in my leadership? Because these four issues, they don't always show up in the metrics. They don't come up in the weekly updates.

And if left unchecked, they can erode your culture and hurt your team and ultimately limit your growth and your impact. Now, I wanna remind you that our team created a free leadership assessment to help you diagnose the leadership blind spots that you may have. And you'll get some practical questions to help you discover where you can lean in and the red flags to watch for. So go to cglp.com and click to download the leader guide. And I wanna just speak to you again, person to person, and tell you that you are not today who you will become tomorrow. There's more in you. You can get better. You're not the sum total of the mistakes that you made in the past. We all make mistakes. We all have problems underneath us. There are so many things in 30 years of leading the church that I'm incredibly proud of and thankful for. And there are other things I look back and go, oh man, I missed it there. I wish I had done better. Do not talk yourself down. Don't live in guilt. Don't live in condemnation. Just get better today. Recognize that the same God who put you in leadership

is the same God who's working in you. Listen to what he says. Let him lovingly correct you. And more than just caring about the results, remember to care about the people. And when you care about the people and you have a mission that matters, somehow great people seem to do great things. And so I wanna tell you, you absolutely and completely have what it takes to make a difference. Make a difference today. If God shows you a problem today, address your problem today. You can't solve it all today, but you can do something today. Do something today to get better because we know that everyone wins when the leader gets better.