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You might think that by the time someone ascends to the ranks of the C-suite or becomes a VP of this or a Senior Director of that, said person has some measure of confidence in their own leadership abilities. You’d be wrong. Boardroom paper tigers are a dime a dozen and once you’re able to spot their tells, it becomes easy to see who might have faked it until they made it all the way up the corporate ladder. Here are a few clues:
He can’t stop name dropping.
People who are secure in their authority don’t need to keep casually reminding anyone in earshot of their impressive resume. If your boss consistently finds ways of shoehorning mentions of previous roles at household name companies into conversation, he’s bragging like this because he thinks it lends credibility and gravitas to what he’s saying. A confident leader doesn’t sound like a LinkedIn profile come to life. He lets his expertise speak for itself without telling you about his Fortune 500 pedigree or all the VC bigwigs he’s on a first name basis with.
She hoards information.
Does your boss leave you in the dark about all but the most basic details necessary to do your job? You don’t want to work for someone who puts themselves at the epicenter of office gossip, but if your boss isn’t sharing vital intel about the health of the company, metrics by which your team will be judged or departmental priorities, she’s showing you that she feels transparency will undermine her authority. Maybe she’s worried about how she’ll motivate the team if everyone finds out about impending restructuring or maybe she doesn’t handle negative feedback or conflict well, so she’d rather not have open discussions. Whatever the case, playing it unnecessarily close to the vest is a sign your boss doesn’t feel she can competently lead a fully-informed team.
He’s stingy when it comes to sharing credit or praise.
Strong leaders aren’t afraid to share the spotlight. They know that the successes of their team reflect well on them. By contrast, insecure leaders view success as a zero-sum game. They feel someone else’s wins take away from their own, so they drag their feet on giving public praise, believing that giving credit means giving away some of their power and encouraging competitive threats to their own position.
She hogs airtime.
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt” is a quote that’s never crossed your boss’s mind. She dominates discussions, as if quality of leadership is determined by quantity of run-on sentences. When she runs a meeting, she runs it straight into the ground. Secure leaders understand that listening is a powerful tool to make employees feel motivated and valued and a smart way to better understand the dynamics of their team. They’re not scared of silence and they don’t feel entitled to be the loudest voice in the room simply by virtue of their title.
He surrounds himself with ‘yes’ people.
Who does your boss trust most? Who are the go-to people he keeps in his inner circle and consults for strategic input? Have you ever known any of them to disagree with him? The company your manager keeps speaks volumes about his confidence. If he’s surrounded by a homogenous huddle of ‘yes’ men and women who don’t challenge his thinking and whose diversity is limited to some of them preferring everything bagels during meetings and some liking poppyseed, take note. You’re reporting to someone who can’t bear to have his worldview questioned and prefers bland assurances over constructive input.
