Learn to identify when leadership is lacking in your organisation. Discover the signs of poor leadership and practical solutions for improvement.
Written by Laura Bouttell • Sat 10th January 2026
Poor leadership costs organisations far more than they realise—in turnover, disengagement, lost productivity, and squandered potential. According to Gallup, only a quarter of employees strongly trust the leadership of their organisations. This trust deficit reflects widespread experience of leadership that fell short when it mattered most.
When people say "leadership was lacking," they typically describe situations where those in positions of authority failed to provide direction, support, or inspiration. The phrase captures a specific disappointment: the expectation that someone would lead, and the reality that they didn't.
Understanding what lacking leadership looks like—and why it occurs—enables organisations to diagnose problems accurately and develop solutions that actually work.
Poor leadership manifests in predictable patterns. Recognising these signs early enables intervention before damage compounds.
Poor communication is perhaps one of the worst traits of a bad leader. When leaders fail to express themselves clearly, it hinders their ability to lead effectively.
Specific communication failures include:
When communication fails, alignment becomes impossible. People work at cross-purposes, rumours fill information voids, and trust erodes.
A lack of trust in team members is a clear sign of bad leadership. Trust is foundational; when it's absent, everything becomes harder.
| Trust Behaviour | Impact of Absence |
|---|---|
| Delegating meaningfully | Micromanagement and bottlenecks |
| Assuming good intentions | Defensive, fearful culture |
| Sharing information openly | Rumour, speculation, anxiety |
| Supporting during difficulty | Abandonment when it matters most |
| Following through on commitments | Cynicism about all promises |
Team members feel undervalued and uncertain about their future with the organisation when trust is lacking. Engagement plummets; departure planning begins.
When leaders prioritise their own interests over those of the team, it exhibits a classic sign of poor leadership.
Self-centred patterns include:
These behaviours destroy loyalty. Why would anyone give discretionary effort to a leader who won't reciprocate?
Of all the signs of a bad leader, this may be one of the hardest to notice—for the leader. Bad leaders often have highly specific preferences for particular styles, communication methods, or approaches to problem-solving.
The problem emerges when preferences cause leaders to completely ignore the contribution of some team members and favour others. This creates:
Those outside the favoured circle disengage or depart, taking capability with them.
Inconsistency is the defining trait of bad leadership. A bad leader is indecisive, makes contradictory decisions, and breaks promises.
The consequences compound:
When decisions contradict each other or disappear entirely, the organisation loses the ability to coordinate action.
Understanding causes enables prevention and remedy.
Many leaders reach their positions without adequate preparation for the demands they'll face. Organisations promote for past performance without developing future capability.
"Most managers are promoted because they were good at something else—technical work, sales, analysis—not because they've demonstrated leadership ability."
This pattern leaves leaders struggling with unfamiliar challenges whilst maintaining the appearance of competence.
Leadership demands have intensified. When leaders become overwhelmed, their worst tendencies emerge:
Overwhelmed leaders often don't recognise how their behaviour has changed.
Sometimes leaders behave poorly because systems reward poor behaviour:
Fixing behaviour without fixing systems rarely succeeds.
Some individuals lack the fundamental capability for leadership:
Not everyone should lead. Recognising this reality prevents considerable suffering.
Poor leadership creates cascading effects throughout organisations.
Employee turnover is a very strong sign of poor leadership. Employees are unlikely to leave if they're satisfied with their work and their leaders.
Research consistently shows that people don't leave organisations—they leave bad bosses.
The costs of turnover extend far beyond recruitment:
Ineffective leaders can quickly impact the morale of even the most motivated employee. The sequence unfolds predictably:
In toxic environments with ineffective leadership, even high performers eventually leave.
Leadership sets cultural tone. When leadership is lacking:
Poor leadership doesn't just create problems—it prevents progress:
The opportunity cost of lacking leadership often exceeds the visible costs.
Recognising lacking leadership is necessary but insufficient. Remedy requires action.
When specific leaders show deficiencies, targeted development can help:
However, development only works if the leader genuinely commits to change.
Individual development rarely suffices when leadership problems are widespread:
Systemic problems require systemic solutions.
Sometimes leaders need replacing, not developing:
Consider change when:
Prolonging poor leadership protects one person at everyone else's expense.
Prevention proves more effective than cure.
"The time to develop leadership capability is before someone needs it, not after they're struggling."
Proactive development includes:
Leaders need consequences for how they lead, not just what they achieve:
Senior leaders shape what's possible throughout organisations:
"People watch what leaders do far more than what they say. The behaviour at the top becomes the ceiling for behaviour everywhere."
When senior leaders demonstrate excellent leadership, they create permission and expectation for others to do likewise.
Signs of lacking leadership include poor communication, lack of trust and empathy, self-centred behaviour, playing favourites, inconsistency, resistance to change, and failure to take accountability. These behaviours manifest as declining morale, increasing turnover, cultural decay, and missed opportunities throughout the organisation.
Poor leadership results from promotion without preparation, overwhelming stress, misaligned incentives, and sometimes fundamental limitations in capability or character. Organisations contribute through inadequate selection, insufficient development, poor accountability, and cultures that tolerate bad leadership when results appear acceptable.
Fixing lacking leadership requires honest diagnosis of specific problems, targeted development for leaders capable of growth, systemic changes to selection and accountability, and willingness to make changes when development fails. Individual intervention without systemic change rarely produces lasting improvement.
Poor leadership damages employee morale, engagement, productivity, and wellbeing. It drives turnover, wastes potential, and creates toxic cultures. The effects extend beyond work to affect employees' personal lives and health. High performers typically leave first, further degrading organisational capability.
Some leaders can change with clear feedback, genuine motivation, appropriate support, and sustained effort. However, change requires acknowledging problems and committing to improvement—conditions that don't always exist. Leaders lacking fundamental capability or character are unlikely to transform regardless of intervention.
Give feedback to poor leaders with specificity (particular behaviours, not general traits), examples (concrete situations, not abstractions), impact (consequences for others, not just perceptions), and alternatives (better approaches, not just criticism). Feedback requires appropriate relationship and timing; sometimes third parties or formal processes work better than direct conversation.
Organisations should prevent bad leadership through better selection and proactive development, detect it through feedback systems and engagement measurement, address it through development and accountability, and end it through transitions when necessary. Tolerance of bad leadership signals that leadership doesn't really matter—a message that corrupts everything else.