The most common unforced error I see with senior leaders is a tendency to try and do it alone - particularly when things get hard.
Whether it's to shelter their team from complexity, feel in control, or appear to have the answers, leaders often pull back from others at the very moment they should lean in.
Thinking and doing are essential skills, but a leader's leverage - their ability to achieve results at scale - comes from the quality and depth of their relationships.
We recently analyzed thousands of Leadership Circle profiles at a large global company. What was the defining trait of the most effective senior leaders? Relating.
It's certainly not the only attribute that mattered. Leaders who balance Relationship AND Task - getting results while getting along - occupy the top quartile in most organizations (and our global database).
Sometimes I still hear Relating described as "soft skills". I've started reframing it as "Leadership Leverage."
Relating is how YOU scale YOU.
Image credit: Tom Fishburne