No Matter What, Don’t Follow Through
A Leader's Guide to Discouraging People, Diminishing Trust, and Damaging Culture
No Matter What, Don’t Follow Through
Description: The leader promises to handle tasks but often doesn't. Occasional oversights are normal, but when it becomes a pattern, everyone knows they won’t follow through. Their lack of organization and follow-through adds extra work since you must follow up.
This One Time: My supervisor never wrote anything down, even when committing to tasks. It became a running joke, and they became a roadblock to progress. The team lost faith, expecting tasks wouldn’t get done, which caused stress and frustration.
Making it Worse: When they see you, the leader pretends nothing is amiss…even when they still have not completed the task. They are the roadblock.
The Leader's Lost: Credibility, trust, and respect.
Employees Feel: Frustrated, stalled, disrespected, uncertain, and skeptical.
The Leader Said: “I will take care of that,” “I am on it,” “I will get that to you.”
The Followers Think: “This person is incompetent,” “This person is lying,” “I am going to have to follow up again.”
At the Water Cooler: “You know he’s never going to do that,” “Good luck getting that back in time,” “How many times do you think you will have to follow up?”
Effective Leadership: Write everything down in one central place, like a day planner or an online system like Microsoft Planner or Things (Mac). During meetings, assign someone to capture action items, including the task, responsible person, and due date, and have them send the notes immediately for transfer to your central system. Common sense ≠ common practice.
This Week: Pay close attention to what others say they will do. Do they write it down? Are they known as someone who will follow through? Perhaps more important, observe your behavior.
I’m not upset that you lied to me. I’m upset that from now on, I can’t believe you.” — Friedrich Nietzsche