Avoiding Leadership Traps
By S. Irfan Ali, MD
Leadership is fundamentally an ability to create synergy or an aligned mission; it’s developing stewardship where people feel strong enough to disagree, brave enough to fail, and supported enough to grow. Leadership is about creating a space where people feel safe, appreciated, and can see a glimpse of the future. Good leaders create careers, not just jobs.
On the other spectrum, some leaders fail as they fall into the trap of becoming a “title” and are eventually consumed by the next one. They forget their roles of supporting and guiding growth. They lose authenticity while chasing victories. Great leaders who win never do so at the cost of being less human.
There were times in my career when I genuinely believed that holding a prestigious title would magically deliver both professional success and personal fulfillment. I thought a lofty designation like “Chief of Something” would open all the right doors that people would nod respectfully, emails would suddenly sound friendlier, and the universe would somehow recognize my “greatness” simply because my badge said so.
Entitlement pulls you away, like a ship drifting from the harbor, like a bird straying too far from the flock, or a leaf drifting from its tree—severed from the wholeness that gives life meaning. No matter how skilled you are at navigating the rat race, at the end of the day, even if you win, you are still a rat. Real leadership is about authenticity, humility, and building meaningful connections. It’s about earning respect through actions, not demanding it because of rank.
The route towards leadership is a journey fraught with traps that can entangle you. Each leader, like a ship’s captain staring into the horizon, must learn to navigate through a myriad of traps that threaten to destabilize their course. These traps—subtle, yet powerful—can ensnare even the most seasoned leaders, pulling them into the whirlpool of ineffective leadership.
Many traps are awaiting us. Here I focus on four I see with regularity:
1. Fog of Self-Awareness
A lack of self-awareness disconnects leaders from their impact on others, causing them to become blind to their strengths and unwilling to acknowledge their limitations. Leaders must become comfortable in their own skin, which requires them to honestly evaluate the assets they bring to the position. Effective leaders learn when it is wise to trust their expertise and when to delegate to those who have superior knowledge of the immediate task, data, circumstances, or decision.
2. Absolute Control
Philosophically, control assumes the world is static—that outcomes can be fixed if we grip tightly enough. Life, however, is fluid. It bends, resists, and evolves. When we seek control, we stop listening. We replace curiosity with rigidity and presence with fear of deviation. What we call “control” is often anxiety wearing the mask of authority.
3. Sirens of Perfection and Impulsivity
These are two opposing forces, one a mythical quest for perfection that creates analysis paralysis and the other that produces reactive thinking. Rather than finding balance between informed decision-making and speed, we become trapped in one or the other of these polarities. We either believe there is so much weighing on a decision to “get it right” that we don’t take action at all, or we believe we are required to offer an immediate response and act impulsively. It’s easy to become so afraid of making the wrong choice, that we end up making no choice at all—which, ironically, is a choice. Or we rush to action, forgetting that the key to taming impulsivity is patience. Leaders must learn to pause, reflect, and weigh the outcomes before acting. But notice my word choice—pause. Reflect, ask questions of the data, the source, or the person, then act.
4. Abyss of Black and White Thinking
The inability to manage nuance and complexity defies the reality of the world. I’m not exactly a fan of gray—like, literally. My closet is pretty black and white. But when it comes to decision-making, the world is all shades of gray. Rigid extremes close your eyes to the vibrant spectrum of possibilities. The tasks of leadership are seldom either/or. We guide complex organizations filled with complicated, sometimes dueling realities.
The Common Thread
There are numerous other traps we can fall into as leaders, just as there are numerous pragmatic solutions to avoiding these traps. But there is one thing all leadership traps share in common: the failure to realize that leadership is not about us.
Compassionate leaders create accountable teams. During crisis, no one follows authority; they respond to empathy.