5 Wasteful Actions Leaders Take and How to Avoid Them
Leadership energy is precious. You only get so much attention, time, and influence each day. Understanding and protecting that energy is critical for every leader. I was just thinking about how I can use my time at the end of a day, when energy is lower, and the motivation to do one more thing is not there. How can I better prepare for those moments ahead of time? How can I better set up ‘future me’ by using a few extra moments now in the best way possible? I’m sure I’m not alone in finding, too late, that my time throughout a day or a week gets lost without a trace.
What themes of activities (or lack of) tend to impact our time most? I’ve grouped them into five common buckets that can drain a leader’s productivity and impact: constant worry, lack of planning, negativity, blaming, and victim syndrome. Rarely are these things intentional, nor are they meant to sound quite as negative as they may come across, but they are the real buckets that end up eroding small pockets of time. They may feel small in the moment. We may not even want to acknowledge them. But in being honest with ourselves, it becomes clear they exist. The good news is that calling them out allows us to act on them, and make the shifts we need to get that time back and concentrate it on more productive outcomes.
1. Constant Worry
Every leader faces uncertainty. The store might miss a goal. A new program might fail. A key person might quit. But chronic worry turns that uncertainty into paralysis. Worry can feel like a form of preparation or even planning, but it’s not. It’s an energy leak. You replay the same “what ifs” without new information or action. Your team senses the tension and starts playing defense instead of offense.
A mindset shift is to replace worry with productive curiosity. Ask one clear question: What can I do next that moves this forward? That question shifts the focus from fear to action. A district manager who worries about a struggling store can replace the loop of anxiety with a simple plan: schedule a visit, diagnose the issue, build a short-term recovery plan, and track results.
Worry wastes hours. Action builds confidence.
Doesn’t it always feel better when we can begin taking action instead of just thinking about something? I know I find myself in that loop occasionally. Then I look for that first small step that moves me ahead rather than standing still.
2. Lack of Planning
Many leaders stay busy without being productive. They bounce between emails or texts, store visits, and calls. Their calendar looks full, but they’re reacting to other agendas, not leading their own. The idea of action does not replace the need for building in planning time and seeing that as a valuable activity. It is also one that requires more energy than most of us realize. Different types of planning may affect you in different ways. Setting your plan for tomorrow, at the end of the day, may be a perfect lower energy activity. Building a bigger picture, longer-term plan takes high energy and a clear mind. Priorities shift daily. Everyone works hard, but not necessarily on the right things.
Start from the outcome you seek and work backwards. I love the question: “what needs to be true in order for this outcome to happen?” By answering that, you can find the next steps, regardless of how small, that you can move towards.
A district or regional leader who plans well spends 15 minutes at the start of each week mapping store visits by need, not by convenience. They review performance data, set goals for each visit, and communicate those plans early. When they walk in the door, the conversation starts at a higher level. There is a target to work towards, versus just walking in to see what you see.
3. Negativity
I have been here and done this. The effects are real. Negativity is contagious. It spreads faster than energy or optimism. It shows up as sarcasm, constant critique, or subtle doubt. It drags down both morale and results. A leader who defaults to the negative might think they’re being realistic. But realism without balance turns into defeatism. Over time, the team stops taking risks because every idea meets resistance.
To reset, focus on what’s possible now. You can still acknowledge problems without letting them dominate the conversation. For example, if sales are off, skip the “why this always happens” talk. Ask instead, “What’s one thing we can try this week that might lift traffic?” Teams mirror their leader’s tone. If you bring energy, curiosity, and belief that improvement is possible, they’ll follow. If you bring complaint and doubt, they’ll wait for direction that never comes.
Negativity wastes influence. Optimism fuels it.
4. Blaming
Blame is leadership’s easiest escape. When results miss, it’s tempting to explain instead of examine. “Corporate didn’t support this.” “The team didn’t execute.” “The market changed.” Blaming can feel like analysis. It feels like you are trying to understand why something happened, without the self-reflection portion of a good analysis. Ultimately, blaming is avoidance. It is a protection mechanism. No one wants to fall short, miss the goal, make the mistake. There may be external impacts to the outcome, and it is ok to acknowledge those, but the follow-up is, “what am I doing about that?”
I worked with someone who brilliantly used to say, “that is a valid excuse, but it is still an excuse. What are you doing now?” That says it all. “Yep, you’re right, that happened. So now what?” That is where real energy should get focused. What can you do about it?
Ownership doesn’t mean taking all the fault. The objective isn’t to blame yourself for these things. It is to move away from blame altogether. Instead, concentrate on what you can control. It signals to your team that improvement starts with leadership, not excuses. Control what you can control may be cliché, but it is accurate.
Blame wastes credibility. Accountability builds it.
5. Victim Syndrome
This walks hand in hand with blame. Victim thinking often hides behind polite language. “We don’t have the tools.” “They changed the process again.” “My team isn’t as strong as others.” Those statements sound factual, but they carry a quiet resignation. They tell your team that success depends on external forces, not leadership or the actions the team could take. Over time, that mindset kills initiative and engagement.
We all have agency in what we choose to do. Circling back to the very beginning of this article, I can blame, be a victim of, remain negative about, and worry about why I am unmotivated at the end of some days and lose valuable time in getting projects moved forward. Or I can reflect on the situation, and own the steps that can change the outcomes. Yes, there will be busy days. Meetings and phones can be very draining. Even visiting stores and engaging in after work dinner meetings can leave you drained despite enjoying the time and conversation. It is in those moments that the planning and recognition of the situation can help avoid the pitfalls of the past. Feeling behind the next morning or later in the week becomes a choice. I can choose to identify the outcomes of those events, or own it and know that I need to build reminders or a structure to work through a few little things, even in low-energy moments, that I can use to set up a better tomorrow.
Victim thinking wastes momentum. Agency restores it.
Building the Discipline to Avoid Waste
There is a common thread that runs through each of these. We choose the outcomes we get. We can take action on any one of these habits or ways of thinking. In each of these, it comes back to asking, “what can I do?” Smaller steps are better than no steps. Thinking about what you can do versus what you can’t, don’t feel like you’re allowed to, or have already happened allows you to see you have control over the situation. No one will be perfect at this. There will still be nights I am unproductive and just fall into watching videos on YouTube or something on TV, or scrolling endlessly. But again, that will be a choice. I choose to challenge myself to recognize it, plan for it, and act differently in the future. You can too.
How do you break out of these habits when you find yourself caught in them?
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