8 Ways Being Too Performance-Focused Hurts You as a Young Leader

I believe you need to take it easy when it comes to setting performance goals for yourself or your team. In this blog post, I want to share with you the eight ways in which being too performance-focused hurts your leadership. My message to you is simple. Take it easy. These are the eight ways being too performance-focused hurts you as a young leader.

Narrowing of Attention and Focus

Max Bazerman co-author of a 2006 study Decisions Without Blinders, argues that being too performance-focused can put “cognitive blinders” on you which narrows your attention and focus. Because you are so focused on trying to achieve a specific level of performance, you run the risk of failing to discover and master the process required for you to perform well.

A goal to increase your revenue as a young business leader by 25% before the end of the year may narrow your focus on just getting new sales for your business, and prevents you from listening to your current customers - the people who already trust you with their money. Because if you're looking to grow your business, your current customers should be the most important people to you, far above anyone you wish you were reaching.

Sacrificing Long-Term Growth for Short-Term Rewards

Performance goals can make you so anxious to perform at a high level that you end up sacrificing long-term growth for short-term rewards. A study by Mei Cheng titled Earnings Guide and Managerial Myopia discovered that companies that frequently issue quarterly earnings reports tend to have lower long-term earnings growth rates. This is because these companies tend to focus more on short-term performance targets in the process ignoring long-term investments into research and development. Your life works the same way. If the goal becomes more important than the learning and growth process, you've already lost.

Over Self-Regulation

The anxiety that is created by a too much focus on performance can cause you to become obsessive about self-regulation (constantly checking yourself to see if you are still on track to meet your goals).

Scott Button co-author of Goal Orientation in Organizational Research discovered that individuals with a strong performance goal orientation were likely to have “obsessive thoughts” (e.g., I don’t think I am going to make it, what if I don’t achieve this goal?).

While on surface this might not look like a bad thing, over self-regulation creates tension and disconnection which leads to poor performance (not to mention the devastating effects of obsessive self-regulation on your mental health).

Adopting Riskier Strategies and Gambles

The lending practices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the excess of Wall Street traders, the financial crisis of 2008, and the collapse of Continental Illinois Bank, Enron, and Lehman Brothers are all examples of what happens when you focus too much on performance.

The economic pressure that is created by wanting to increase performance can force you to adopt riskier strategies and gambles, which as you might be aware from the examples listed above, results in catastrophic and disastrous effects.

Making Larger Demands that in Turn Destroy Value

Demanding more from yourself or others is not a bad thing. It is what leaders are expected to do. However, being too performance-focused can cause you to demand too much from yourself or others that at the end you lose the value of what you already possess.

In his 2006 book Destructive goal pursuit, Christopher Kayes cites the 1996 Mt Everest disaster in which eight climbers died due to aggressive goal pursuit by two team leaders. This example shows what happens when you become excessively fixated on performance goals or when you associate performance with destiny.

Promoting Unethical Behaviour

The use of performance goals creates a focus on ends rather than means and makes it easy for people to rationalize unethical behaviour.

Adam Barsky author of Understanding the ethical cost of organization goal setting, argues that unethical behavior (e.g., lying or cheating) by an organization is not only a by-product of a few “bad apples”, but is a systematic effect of setting performance goals. Performance goals put unnecessary pressure on people to achieve a goal by all means necessary or otherwise they will be punished for failing to achieve that goal.

Reducing Intrinsic Motivation

While being performance-focused can inspire high performance, research shows that performance goals have been over-valued in how they increase motivation. Carol Dweck, co-author of A Social-Cognitive Approach to Motivation and Personality, argues that failure to achieve a performance goal can be perceived as an “inadequacy of capabilities” which can lead to fear of failure.

For example, if you are a young team leader and set a specific performance goal for your team (e.g., grow our online revenue by signing 35 new customers a week this quarter) and fail to achieve it, you are likely to get de-motivated and you may even get angry at yourself or your team for not achieving your goal. Or you may even stop trying for fear of failure. Looking merely to achieve a performance goal is not enough, and frankly, it's a horrible idea.

Promoting Maladaptive Behaviour

A too much focus on performance can prevent you from learning from your mistakes and adapting your strategies. Performance goals are usually based on impressions and assumptions which may turn out to be incorrect or false. This is one of the reasons I founded Becoming a Willing Student. I wanted to help young leaders pursue the right goals and become who they want to be, the right way.

The starting point is learning to be a great leader of your own life first and then building a high-performance team around you. You’ll need to become open to new information, new ideas, and new realities. You’ll have to take lots and lots of small steps towards your goals. That’s how you overcome the anxiety that comes with becoming who you want to be.

What am I saying?

You have to become a higher learner not just a high performer. You don’t want to be too performance-focused. There are side-effects and drawbacks to being too performance-oriented.

You don’t need me to tell you that you are living in a complex global marketplace and workplace. Your environment is changing every day. That means your focus should be more on learning and growth.

Learning goals like this one (find five ways of growing my income this year) are more superior to performance goals like this one (earn $150,000 in new income by the end of this year).

You are living in the age of constant technological, social, and economic changes. A learning and growth orientation is more likely to benefit you than a too much focus on performance.

This is what Becoming a Willing Student is all about. It’s about learning to succeed. It’s about adapting to this ever-changing global environment. It’s about adopting a learning and growth mindset that allows you to increase your competence and your desire to learn new skills. It’s about mastering new tasks, understanding new things and seeking feedback.

Are you feeling frustrated and stuck at work and in your career?

It could be because you are too fixated on performance.

You may be ignoring the learning and growth opportunities that are in front of you. The uncomfortable things in front of you might be what you actually need to get to the next level of your career. Becoming a Willing Student is about using this moment in your life to adjust your strategies, re-position yourself for long-term success, and take control of your life, the right way.