Leadership influence isn’t just built by your results; it’s shaped by the habits you repeat every day. Many unhealthy leadership habits develop gradually, often driven by a desire to be helpful, responsive, or results-focused. Over time, these patterns limit a leader’s impact and shape a culture of dependency, avoidance, reactivity, and sometimes toxicity. Leaders feel stretched thin and stuck in the weeds, while teams struggle with clarity, ownership, and trust.
A leadership detox is about letting go of habits that limit your influence and impact, while intentionally replacing them with healthier leadership practices that increase your influence, improve results, and create a stronger, more engaged team culture.
Here are five unhealthy leadership habits to detox this year, and what to do instead to elevate both your leadership and your team.
1. Fixing instead of coaching
Many leaders fall into the habit of stepping in to fix problems, manage details, or offer solutions—especially when they care deeply about outcomes. In the moment, this can feel efficient or helpful. Over time, however, it creates dependency, limits ownership, and slows the development of others. Leaders who elevate their impact are intentional about where they spend their time. They slow down enough to ask questions, coach others to think of solutions, and allow team members to build confidence and capability, even when it takes longer. If you want deeper insight into where you may be operating as a fixer, and how to shift toward a more facilitative leadership approach, I created a free assessment that provides impactful strategies for elevating your leadership: Fixer to Facilitator Assessment
2. Avoiding difficult conversations
When leaders delay addressing issues, offer vague feedback, or hope problems resolve themselves, tension grows, and problems escalate. Avoidance may feel like it protects relationships, but it erodes trust and clarity. Strong leaders address concerns early, directly, and respectfully—creating alignment and preventing unnecessary tension from building beneath the surface. They make the health of their team a strategic priority, addressing misalignment or issues quickly to ensure optimal functioning of the team.
3. Leading in constant reaction mode
Operating from urgency instead of intention keeps leaders in constant reaction mode, leaving little space for strategic thinking or proactive leadership. When there’s no clear plan and energy is spent responding to emails, meetings, distractions, and interruptions, time and effort are wasted, and results suffer. Teams struggle to understand priorities, and leaders feel perpetually behind, pulled in too many directions at once. Strong leaders know that results come from taking charge of their focus and their calendar, being intentional with their energy, and consistently directing attention to the few strategic areas that have the biggest impact. They know that the foundational principles of planning, blocking time, and protecting that time are essential for leadership impact.
4. Ignoring the Impact of Your Energy
Many leaders underestimate how much their personal energy affects their performance and their team. Poor end of day habits like staying up too late, running on little sleep, or being constantly connected to work drain your focus, patience, and energy, and can have a negative impact on decision-making. In addition, the energy you convey to others is contagious. Being rushed, constantly checking your phone, or mentally elsewhere in conversations, send powerful signals to others. When leaders show up depleted or distracted, it creates tension, disengagement, and uncertainty across the team. Leaders who elevate their impact treat energy as a leadership responsibility. They protect their capacity through rest and recovery, and they show up present, focused, and intentional; knowing that their personal energy directly impacts the culture and performance of their team.
5. Back-channeling instead of productively processing challenges
In my experience as a coach and consultant, this is one of the most damaging—and most common—unhealthy leadership habits I see. Leaders avoid difficult conversations, fail to surface concerns in the right forums, and instead process frustration through side conversations or complaints with others. While it may seem harmless in the moment, it significantly undermines a leader’s credibility and influence. Over time, back-channeling normalizes avoidance, creates misalignment, and introduces toxicity into the team. Before long, leaders are making false assumptions, reacting negatively to others, and creating stories in their head about people’s intentions. The team become toxic, and siloes create divides. Strong leaders approach interpersonal and business challenges with maturity by productively processing issues in the moment, not behind the scenes. They pause to clarify the real issue, address it through the appropriate channel, and engage in direct, productive conversations that move the team forward rather than allowing frustrations to fester. They approach even the most tense interactions with curiosity, calm, emotional maturity, and respect. They focus on the good of the team and entire organization, rather than personal gain or ego.
Lasting leadership impact is built through the small, consistent choices you make every day. The behaviors you model as a leader set the tone for how work gets done, how challenges are addressed, and how people show up for one another. When you detox unhealthy habits and replace them with practices that bring clarity, ownership, energy, and productive dialogue, your influence expands, results improve, and your culture becomes healthier and more resilient. Elevating your influence, impact, and results this year starts with intentionally building healthy leadership and team habits.
I really love and enjoy this reading. Reading this I learned that when you speak out clearly you thoughts and ideas people see you as winner, because you are not afraid to go straight to the point.
Great article.....And happy belated birthday! Welcome to my world, young lady!
Whenever I have a work project that I keep putting off - I think about delegating that project to someone else - which accomplishes 2 things- it gets the project done and frees us my brain space thinking about it.
Good morning. I loved this read. Thank you so much for sharing. Sincerely, Melissa :)
Thank you for this blog Laurie. I liked most part and specially "As organizations have become more complex, there is a tendency to require employees to do more with less. This is a slippery slope, and often can result in employees feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. One of the biggest contributors to this is not evaluating resources during the strategic planning process." I will use this practice "A best practice is to do what I call Priority Planning—putting important practices on your calendar ahead of time so they become a priority in your day. Examples of activities to Priority Plan include scheduling recurring coaching sessions with each team member, time for strategic thinking and planning, vacations, doctor appointments, important children’s events, and blocks of time for focused work on projects." To be more effective, I will get a good rest so I can have enough energy in the morning. I will read the blog again along with the other links on employee evaluation. Thank you so much Laurie. Best wishes to you and your family.
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I love the feedback on the more than 50 hours of work. AND filling time. So true. Unfortunately, showing that you work longer hours is still seen as being a "hard worker" - not sure how to change that though.
I enjoyed the read. I concur that transitioning from technical skills to delegating results was a task within itself. I did not realize I was almost trying to do the same thing from my previous position, and it was not working. However, I am seeing the results of how delegating daily tasks makes my job and workload easier. Thank you, Laurie.
Thank you for sharing information about your trip Laurie! All 3 things resonate with me - probably #1 being the biggest. I know when I'm gone for a week, I'm still thinking about work and need a vacation when I get back because I did not relax enough. I think your idea of a longer vacation is definitely in my future!!
Hey Laurie, My take on your list - 1 - everyone has a story - listen 2- social media causes interpersonal problems 5- generational differences create hurdles / earn it you aren't entitled / we should help them get there not give it to them 6 AMEN some leaders I would have followed thru Hell, some I wish - well, you know 7- true BUT be as good as your word and 14- Hopefully we leave some good from our efforts, I know the good leaders I have had have. Seen a lot in my career but it really comes down to treat others the way you want to be treated, fair, honest, and straight forward. Good read. Take care
I love this so much and thank you so much for sharing! I really just love realizing that enjoying the simple things sometimes is the best! Also recognizing that what is important and fun to you may not be everyone else's fun on the on the trip. “Do we get to keep these toiletries?” was my favorite!!!! :):) Glad you had a great time and got to spend it with your family!
I very much resonate with lesson no 3! Thank you Laurie
I think the part that you might have missed in their top 5 things, some of which were not "Italian" or even different from home, all of them happened with you, both of you. And i think that is what they will remember too. And you've got tons of photos that will remind them of what the Sistine Chapel looked like - then they might remember what it sounded like or smelled like. Oh- and i agree with you 100% about sleep!
LOTS of great take-aways from this post! Thank you for posting! I especially love "slow down to speed up". That's a keeper!
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the not getting enough rest to be at my best. definitely need to get more quality sleep and make that a priority
It really is hard to narrow down the 3 lessons into one because they are all so interconnected. You need to give your mind and body THE TIME to relax SO THAT you can enjoy the SIMPLE THINGS, including REST. I enjoyed that lesson as a whole. I will take that lesson with me on my next vacation (or staycation). As always, thank you Laurie for your candor and for sharing your own lessons with others so that we too can benefit.
Great information and reminders
Laurie, Thank you for sharing your trip and these nuggets. The lessons that resonate most with me are it does take time to relax and getting proper rest. When you devote 15 plus hours of your day for work, taking care of home and others; the 6-7 hours you lay down does not cut it! For me during this time I'm trying to unwind and find myself thinking fighting not to think about what I have to do tomorrow. Even after I create a to do list for the next day...I find things I need to add. Taking a day off here and there doesn't cut it as well because of all the plans you have for that day. I try to make sure my Mental Health Days remains just that.... time for me to laugh, cry, scream.... whatever I need to release the cares and stress!
Really enjoyed the article... and all very true!
Since I was already well aware of #1 (I'm in the same boat with taking a long time to relax), I think I'm resonating most with #3. I'm learning to prioritize sleep / rest and it's been wonderful. Love that you said "I love sleep.". :)
Welcome back from vacation. Well deserve! Action is the key to success. Shoulder to shoulder, coaching and delegating task to help other employees grow are very important. It is a sacrifice that one must do. Forget about yourself and be with your team day in and out to help them grow, is not always easy. On the long run, your team is stronger, and you can depend on them for the success of the organization. Thank you so much!
So many great tips here, thank you!
I am so impressed you're able to disconnect and these are great tips I'll be sure to try on my next trip!
Such a great post - so inspiring!