UpTrajectory Review
Marcel Schwantes tells Inc. readers that the clearest warning signs of bad leadership hide in team behavior, not in self-assessment. Most owners look inward for answers. They read leadership books, attend conferences, and hire coaches to fix their flaws. Schwantes redirects the lens outward. Your employees act as mirrors. They reflect your management style through engagement, communication patterns, and willingness to take risks. If you want to know whether you lead well, study them. The original likely covers specific indicators in depth. Schwantes has built his reputation on emotional intelligence and leadership behavior, so expect concrete examples drawn from workplace psychology.
This matters because small-business owners rarely receive honest feedback. You lack the HR infrastructure of a large corporation. No 360-degree reviews arrive on your desk. Your direct reports depend on you for paychecks, so they filter their words. You might believe your open-door policy works while your team avoids that door entirely. Behavioral indicators cut through the politeness. They show you what your staff will not say aloud. For a five-person shop or a fifty-person firm, the cost of missing these signals runs high. You lose your best hire to a competitor. You spend months wondering why.
Schwantes points to specific behaviors worth watching. High turnover in one department signals a local problem, not a market trend. Meetings where no one challenges your ideas suggest fear, not agreement. Employees who stop bringing you problems have learned that speaking up costs them something. These patterns differ from the occasional bad week. They persist. They shape your culture. They cost you talent you cannot afford to lose. We agree with his core claim. Leaders who monitor team behavior catch problems earlier than leaders who rely on annual surveys or gut feelings. The behavior is data. It arrives daily and demands no survey budget.
We caution against over-reading individual quirks. One quiet employee might simply be introverted. A department with high turnover might face external pressures you cannot control. Look for patterns across multiple people and multiple months. Single data points mislead. Trends inform. Second-order effects cut both ways. If you ignore the signals, you bleed talent and reputation. If you overreact to every silence, you create the anxiety you hoped to eliminate. Your managers watch how you respond. They learn whether observation leads to support or punishment. That lesson shapes their own behavior toward their teams.
Start this week. Watch who speaks in meetings and who stays silent. Note which employees seek you out and which avoid you. Track resignation letters by department. If you spot warning signs, ask directly: What am I doing that makes your job harder? Then listen without defending yourself. The behavior you observe today becomes the turnover you regret tomorrow. Schwantes offers a diagnostic tool, not a cure. The cure depends on whether you act on what you see.
“The clearest warning signs are often hiding in your team’s behavior.” — Inc. Magazine
Takeaway: Watch who speaks, who stays silent, and who leaves; then ask your team what you do that makes their job harder.
Excerpt from the original — Inc. Magazine
The clearest warning signs are often hiding in your team’s behavior.