Leaders, Are Your Direct Reports a Wart on Arm of Progress? | #Leadership

Leaders have leaders reporting to them. If you are a top leader, do you know if your direct reports are fueling growth, change, and success?

Or are your direct reports a wart on the arm of progress — blocking change despite what they are telling you?



Leaders, Are Your Direct Reports a Wart on Arm of Progress? Image by: Charles Williams



5 signs that your leaders are a wart on progress:

  1. They demoralize teams by speaking about the past instead of the future. Example: Why didn’t you or we should have. No matter how this is spoken, it doesn’t fuel commitment to change. It fuels resentment, fear, and guarded behavior. Progress flourishes with learning and confident exploration.


  2. They say they will lead change while claiming there is not yet enough data, time, or resources to make a decision. Their wart may be the fear of failure or inability to see ahead from the current picture. Effective leaders know that progress materializes from incremental steps not a complete roadmap.


  3. They seem like star performers yet can’t rally others to star performance. Their wart may be an unwillingness to stand back for others to shine. They are so headstrong, they listen to nobody and block team input. Teams need to have a voice else they sense progress is outside their grasp. Related Post: Is Our Knowledge Too Noisy to Listen?


  4. They crush others with the demand for perfection. Their wart is perfectionism. The quest for excellence breeds progress; perfectionism kills it like the disease it is.


  5. They are a lid that fits any pot. Their wart is lack of identity. Teams rarely trust them for they feel clueless. Flexible leaders inspire contribution and progress; nondescript leaders leave teams bewildered without a vision. Without vision, progress falters.



If your organization is not progressing toward the vision, look at the leaders reporting to you.

Are they inspiring teams, communicating, and breeding excellence? Or do they suffer from any of the 5 warts noted above?


Your mentoring or some help from a professional coach can remove the warts and get the organization, once again, on the road to progress.

From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™


©2011-2021 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com for permission and guidelines. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.


Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

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3 Responses to “Leaders, Are Your Direct Reports a Wart on Arm of Progress? | #Leadership”

  1. Liz Weber says:

    Though a nasty visual 🙂 your ideas are sound. Leaders need to always ensure they’re clearing roadblocks for their teams – not creating them! Cheers!

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