The Dangers of Being a Mission Driven Leader
Over the years, I’ve had the gift of working with very talented entrepreneurs, founders and CEOs. My formal education was all about the soft-skills of leading non-profits. So having the chance to work alongside many MBAs, lawyers, doctorate level scholars, and deeply experienced leaders has filled in the business knowledge gaps my formal education never addressed.
But what i have lacked in formal business training, I make up for in soft skills: perceiving the impact of leaders strengths/weaknesses on people, understanding how culture is affected by high level decisions, and a belief that investing in good people will get the results leaders want.
With this said, I wanted to take a few minutes this morning to write out some things that I’ve seen mission driven leaders make a few mistakes that hurt their teams and overall mission.
Burn out committed people for the sake of mission
Use the mission as a means for underpaying people
Making team members feel like they are truly a part of the mission, until they aren’t.
Treating the work as a personal reflection of themselves.
