The First Mistake Bad Leaders Make in a New Job

The first mistake bad leaders make in a new job is subtle, common, and avoidable.

They come into an organization and they don’t narrow the priority list.

In our research for Power Score, we found that only 24% of leaders are good at prioritizing. And when a leader is bad at prioritizing, 90% of the time it’s because they let too many priorities stay alive.

In short, great leaders prune priorities.

What does priority pruning look like?

It looks like taking a weed whacker to the overgrown mass of useless priorities that grow inside organizations.

It looks like what Steve Jobs did when he returned to Apple, and trimmed the number of products from hundreds to under 10.

It looks like what Inn-N-Out burger (for those of you who have enjoyed this delicious West Coast treat) does in only giving you a menu of burger, fries, and drink.

It looks like what Scott Cook (founder of Intuit) did in making Quickbooks simple like using your checkbook.

There are so many leaders I see who lack the analytical horsepower, the courage, or the decisiveness to prune priorities. So they just let dozens, or hundreds, or even thousands of priorities live on in their organizations and distract people away from the small set of things that matter most.

If you want a simple way to prune priorities, use this one-page discussion guide straight out of our Power Score book. Have your team rate your priorities 1-10. If you are scoring a 9 or 10, keep doing what you are doing. If, however, you score less than a 9, then it’s time to get out the weed whacker and start pruning!

Download the SMARTtools for Leaders™ PRIORITIES Tool.