By Marissa Levin, an EO Chesapeake Bay member and CEO of Information Experts.

If there’s one thing I learned as an entrepreneur, it’s this: Leadership isn’t just about knowing how to do the right things. It’s also about being hyper-aware of behaviors that can quickly alienate employees and bring down the organization. My 17 years of business leadership have taught me this, as well as five other ways to fail at leadership:

1. Hoard the decision-making process or refuse to delegate. Trust in your people— that’s why you have them. Business owners are often their own worst enemy because they become a bottleneck to growth. If employees have to beg for approval on every decision, how can anything move forward? Example: Our office manager took the initiative to move into a new HR role. This meant that she had to own the relationship with our HR benefits company. The company we selected was not a good hand-holder; it wasn’t their culture to guide new HR managers through a learning curve. Our HR manager felt set up for failure with this firm, so she did her research and found one that was a better fit. Had I micromanaged instead of empowering her, we wouldn’t have found a great firm, and more importantly, our HR manager wouldn’t have gained the knowledge she needed to excel in her role.
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