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The second thing I did right as a young leader was read every book I could find on the topic of leading teams and leading people. To be clear, I am not a voracious reader. My attention span is short, and my patience for long-winded theories and thoroughly explained research methodologies is minimal. That said, in my early career as a leader, I read (or more accurately, started to read) hundreds of books on this topic. But when all was said and done, the books that resonated with me most (and the ones I actually finished!) over those two decades were the fables written by Patrick Lencioni.

When I took on multiple sales teams, I read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. After applying what I learned, two things happened. First, the teams started getting along better. And as nice as that was, the second outcome was even more important: My teams' results started to improve. Dramatically.

When I joined a company that was known for its terrible meetings, I read Lencioni's work Death by Meeting and applied what I learned across the division I led. Meetings improved because we were talking about the most important things and engaging in good debate; we made better decisions and ended each meeting with clarity. Productivity at those meetings increased, as it did across the company as the methodology was adopted across the enterprise.

Later in my career, when I took on responsibility for a consulting business unit in a different company, I read and applied the concepts from Lencioni's book Getting Naked. The result? Customer service scores improved, as did all of our other key performance indicators.

These books and others fueled my passion for improving teams and organizations and proved that a thoughtful, disciplined approach to applying simple concepts and ideas could dramatically improve organizational results.

After leading organizations and teams for the better part of two decades, I founded my own consulting business cleverly named Mike McHargue Consulting, and simultaneously aligned my business to The Table Group, a Patrick Lencioni company, working with that business as a principal consultant. This business and my role in it have afforded me the opportunity to work with hundreds of CEOs and other executive leaders and their teams over the past decade.

It turns out that those leaders also made mistakes.

The best leaders admit their mistakes so that others might learn from them. This makes everyone on the team and in the organization better. Perhaps that's why these 35 leaders agreed to share some of their stories here, including what they have learned from their oversights and missteps.

Whether you are a first-time manager or a seasoned executive wanting to hone your skills, I am hopeful that in these pages you'll find some wisdom to help you grow as a leader.

MISTAKE # 1

ALLOWING CONFUSION

—Brené Brown

 

ALLOWING CONFUSION

When I work with executive teams, early in the first day together, I often lead an interactive exercise called "best team," where I ask each executive to think about the best team they have ever been on. I ask that they be creative in thinking about teams outside of their current team and not limit their example to only business teams. Their best team could be within their current organization or with a previous employer, but could also be from a community organization, a school, a sports team, their church, or even their family.

I say, "Of all the teams you have been on, in all the organizations you have worked with or for, pick the one team that stands out as the very best. And why that team? What are the things that make that particular team rise above the dozens, if not hundreds, of other teams you have worked on or for?" I give them a few minutes to come up with that best team and to note the key qualities or characteristics that made that team so great.

After a minute or two of individual reflection, I typically pair them up and ask them to share their best team with their assigned partner. As the sharing begins, the energy in the room immediately grows exponentially. The member of the pair who is sharing the best team story sits up straighter and breaks into a smile. There is typically laughter and excitement in the room that weren't there previously.

Once a couple of minutes have passed, I ask them to switch roles, and again there is an energy surge as the second member of each pair begins to recall their very best team. As I try to move on from this part of the exercise, invariably the conversations continue, and I need to ask multiple times for the stories to stop so we can move on. Leaders like talking about their best teams!