---
title: Leadership pitfalls - Linus Murphy
description: Isolation, signal overload and short-termism are built into the top
  job. Spot the early tremors and install course-correctors before the cracks
  widen.
url: https://linusmurphy.com/guide/why-successful-leaders-stall/leadership-pitfalls/
language: en-GB
type: article
author: Linus Murphy
author_url: https://linusmurphy.com/about/
---

[The 30-part series · Part 26 of 30](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/#series)

# Leadership pitfalls: isolation, signal overload and short-term tunnel vision

By [Linus Murphy](https://linusmurphy.com/about/) • 9 min read

Focus area 26: Leadership pitfalls. [Chapter 4: Why successful leaders stall](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/why-successful-leaders-stall/).

Part of the Executive Coaching Methodology: [See what you cannot see](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/#see-what-you-cannot-see)

![A rain-filled pothole beside the white edge line of an empty road](https://linusmurphy.com/images/series/leadership-pitfalls.webp)

The argument in brief

The pitfalls that end senior tenures are built into the top job, not into the person: isolation, signal overload and short-term tunnel vision. Because they are structural, willpower will not fix them; designed course-correctors will, if you install them while the cracks are still small.

Each pitfall starts as a small tremor and grows. Course-correctors belong near the start of the line, not where most leaders finally act.

Some leaders stall because of who they are. Many more stall because of where they sit. The top job builds its own traps: it filters what reaches you, floods you with what does, and rewards whatever pays off before the next results day. None of that requires a character flaw. It only requires the top job.

I use “pitfall” for the traps that damage a career, a culture and an organisation at the same time. The three I meet most often are isolation, signal overload and short-term tunnel vision. Each starts as a reasonable response to real pressure. Each, left alone, teaches the company the wrong lesson.

My claim is this. Because these pitfalls are built into the top job, willpower will not fix them. Trying harder to stay connected, focused and long-term is what every leader already promises at the start of the year. What works is design: a small number of course-correctors, installed while the tremors are still small, that keep working when you are too busy to remember them.

The parent chapter, [why successful leaders stall](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/why-successful-leaders-stall/), describes the full sequence: a temptation after a win, a flaw that others pay for, then a pitfall the culture copies. This article stays with the last stage, and with the two course-correctors I rely on most: a diverse council and a strategy sabbatical.

## Three pitfalls built into the top job

### Isolation

[Thomas Saporito](https://web.archive.org/web/2015/https://hbr.org/2012/02/its-time-to-acknowledge-ceo-lo), drawing on RHR International’s first CEO Snapshot Survey, reported that half of CEOs experience loneliness in the role, and that 61 percent of that group believe it hinders their performance. First-time CEOs are hit hardest: nearly 70 percent of those who feel lonely say it affects their performance.

The cost is not the feeling. It is what the feeling does to decisions. Saporito describes isolation leading to inaction, to feeling frozen, and to leaders becoming mired in small details while the decisions that matter wait. His remedy is a support system that works in two directions: a safe place to voice concerns, and people who reliably give honest, unvarnished feedback. That second part is what most leaders skip. They build comfort, not challenge.

I wrote about the support side in [lonely at the top: designing support for CEOs](https://linusmurphy.com/articles/lonely-at-the-top-designing-support-for-ceos/). Here the point is narrower. Isolation is a pitfall when it starts shaping what you decide, because nobody pressure-tests the frame before it becomes a plan. That is why it sits so close to the [fatal flaws of leaders](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/why-successful-leaders-stall/fatal-flaws-of-leaders/): ego thrives where nobody is allowed to disagree.

### Signal overload

The second pitfall is the opposite problem. Too little honest information, and far too much of every other kind. [Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal](https://web.archive.org/web/2020/https://hbr.org/2002/02/beware-the-busy-manager) spent ten years studying busy managers in nearly a dozen large companies, including some 200 at Lufthansa. They concluded that fully 90% of managers squander their time in ineffective activity. The largest group, more than 40%, were what they called distracted: energetic, well-intentioned people who confuse frenetic motion with constructive action. Only around 10% were both highly energetic and highly focused.

At the very top, the overload is structural. [Michael Porter and Nitin Nohria](https://web.archive.org/web/2023/https://hbr.org/2018/07/how-ceos-manage-time) tracked the CEOs of 27 large companies around the clock for 13 weeks, gathering 60,000 hours of data. One of the dualities they describe is the need to pursue an agenda proactively while reacting to unfolding events. The pitfall is letting the second swallow the first. When everything arrives as urgent, you become a sorting office, and the team learns that the fastest route to your attention is escalation.

### Short-term tunnel vision

The third pitfall is the quietest. This quarter is always more vivid than next year. The board meets on a fixed rhythm, the market reports on a fixed rhythm, and the decisions that pay back in three years have no meeting of their own.

The cost of that is measurable. The [McKinsey Global Institute](https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/long-term-capitalism/where-companies-with-a-long-term-view-outperform-their-peers) built a Corporate Horizon Index across 615 large and mid-cap US-listed companies. From 2001 to 2014, the revenue of firms it classed as long-term grew on average 47 percent more than that of other firms, cumulatively, with less volatility. Their earnings grew 36 percent more and their economic profit 81 percent more. The long-term firms also kept increasing R&D spending through the financial crisis, while others cut it.

Tunnel vision rarely announces itself. It shows up as a capability investment deferred for the third time, a successor plan that is always next quarter’s job, and a strategy offsite that turns into a forecast review.

## The early tremors

The point of naming pitfalls is to see them while they are still tremors. Here is the diagnostic I use.

| Pitfall | Early tremor | What it costs if left | Course-corrector |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Isolation | You cannot name who last told you something you did not want to hear | Irreversible calls made on an untested frame | A diverse council on a fixed cadence |
| Isolation | Big decisions slip while you work on small ones | A team that waits, then stops bringing options | One hard call taken per week, with counsel |
| Signal overload | Most of your diary is reacting, not pursuing | Escalation becomes the culture | A weekly block that nobody can book |
| Signal overload | The same three people get airtime in every meeting | Signals from the edge never reach you | Rotate who presents and who challenges |
| Short-term tunnel vision | Every decision you took this year paid back within the year | Capability starved for results | A strategy sabbatical, protected and recurring |
| Short-term tunnel vision | The offsite became a forecast review | Next year is this year, busier | One agenda item with a three-year horizon only |

If two rows in one pitfall are live, treat it as a crack, not a tremor.

## Two course-correctors, built properly

### A diverse council

A council is a small group, outside your formal reporting line, that meets you on a fixed cadence and is allowed to disagree. It answers isolation directly, and it filters signal overload, because it asks what matters rather than what is loudest.

The word diverse is doing real work. [David Rock and Heidi Grant](https://web.archive.org/web/2023/https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter) open their case for diverse teams with a 2015 McKinsey report on 366 public companies: those in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean, and those in the top quartile for gender diversity 15% more likely. That is a company-level correlation, not proof that any council works. But it points in the same direction as the remedy the psychologist Irving Janis proposed for groupthink: a group that looks and thinks like you will not catch your mistakes.

So build for difference. Different functions, different ages, at least one person from outside the company and at least one from outside your industry. Give them the decision before it is made, not the announcement after.

### A strategy sabbatical

The second course-corrector answers tunnel vision and overload at once. It is protected time away from the daily stream, long enough to think about the business rather than inside it. For some leaders that is a week a year. For most, I start with one day a month away from the office, with no operational calls and one question on the page: what would we regret not starting this year?

Protection is the whole design. A strategy day that can be moved for a customer escalation is not a course-corrector. It is a hope.

## Arguments

### The case for

The evidence that these pitfalls are structural is consistent. Saporito’s survey found loneliness in half of CEOs and a performance cost in most of those. Bruch and Ghoshal found that nine in ten managers spend their time ineffectively, across a decade and nearly a dozen companies. Porter and Nohria found that reacting to events is a permanent pull on the CEO’s time. McKinsey found that companies taking a longer view outgrew the rest. When the same pattern shows up across different methods and different decades, it is a feature of the role, not a quirk of the person. Structural problems need structural answers.

### The case against

The strongest objection is that the job is the job. CEOs are paid to absorb pressure, react quickly and deliver this year’s numbers. A leader who disappears for strategy days while the business is on fire, or who runs every decision past a council, will be overtaken by competitors who simply move.

There is a fair second objection. Councils can become comfort, a group of admirers with a grand name. Sabbaticals can become escape. And the long-term outperformance in the McKinsey data is an average across firms; it does not mean any particular long-term bet will pay.

Those objections hold in specific conditions. In a genuine crisis, reaction is the right priority for a while. A council chosen for loyalty will make isolation worse, not better. And long-term thinking that never lands a decision is just procrastination with a vision statement.

### Where I stand

I do not ask leaders to step away from the pressure. I ask them to stop leaving the response to willpower. In my [7-step coaching process](https://linusmurphy.com/services/impactful-leadership-7-step-executive-coaching-process/), the tremor audit sits in Awareness, where we map what you are actually seeing and missing. Ranking the pitfalls by business impact is Challenges. Designing the council and the sabbatical, and testing them in real months, is Improvement. If they are working, Impact is where they show up: in decision speed, in fewer escalations and in a capability line on the board pack that has stopped slipping.

My condition is that both course-correctors are protected and recurring. If they can be cancelled by the next urgent thing, they will be.

## Try this

Run a tremor audit this week. It takes an hour and your last month’s diary.

1.  Print your diary for the last four weeks. Mark every hour as pursuing (your agenda) or reacting (someone else’s).
2.  List the people who told you something you did not want to hear in that month. Note their role and whether they work for you.
3.  List every significant decision you took. Mark the year in which each one pays back.
4.  Read the tremor table above and circle every row that applies.
5.  Pick the pitfall with the most circles. Design one course-corrector for it, put the first three dates in the diary and tell one person who will hold you to them.

Then reflect:

-   Who would I call tonight if I needed to hear that I am wrong?
-   What share of my week did I spend on the agenda I set in January?
-   Which decision have I deferred for a quarter or more, and what am I waiting for?
-   If my council were chosen by my harshest critic, who would be on it?
-   What would I start if I had one clear day a month to think?

## Where to go next

Pitfalls are the last stage of a sequence that starts with the [temptations of successful leaders](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/why-successful-leaders-stall/temptations-of-successful-leaders/) and hardens through the [fatal flaws of leaders](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/why-successful-leaders-stall/fatal-flaws-of-leaders/). Isolation and overload both show up first in the hardest calls, which is why I pair this with [making tough decisions](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/trust-under-pressure/make-tough-decisions/). And because a pitfall is something the culture copies, the antidote often sits with the team: [building high-performance teams](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/building-winning-teams/build-high-performance-teams/) covers the norms that keep signals honest. For the momentum side of short-termism, read [momentum breakers and makers](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/leading-change/momentum-breakers-and-makers/).

In elite sport, the rider who only races and never steps back to plan the season gets found out by the calendar. I write about that in [from elite sport to the boardroom](https://linusmurphy.com/services/from-elite-sport-to-the-boardroom/) and in [how CEOs decide better under pressure](https://linusmurphy.com/articles/how-ceos-decide-better-under-pressure/). If your whole leadership team is sitting in the same pitfall, [executive team coaching](https://linusmurphy.com/services/executive-team-coaching/) is often the faster route. When you are ready, [book a 30-minute strategy call](https://linusmurphy.com/contact/).

Where this came from

The idea that capable leaders fall into traps built by their own position goes back at least to Irving Janis. In Victims of Groupthink (1972) he studied foreign-policy fiascoes such as the Bay of Pigs and asked why groups of very intelligent people made poor decisions. His answer was structural: cohesive groups, a strong leader and homogeneous members drift towards an illusion of invulnerability, self-censorship and people who guard the leader from bad news. His remedies were structural too: more channels for dissent and a deliberately varied group. Later research on CEO time and CEO loneliness has added the individual side, but the core insight holds. The chair builds the trap.

## Questions I am asked

**Is isolation really a pitfall, or just part of the job?**

Both. Isolation is structural: your team manages you, your board samples you and your peers are often competitors. That part is the job. Leaving it undesigned is the pitfall. I ask every CEO I work with to name the people who give them honest, unvarnished feedback, and to show me when they last met. If the list is short or the dates are old, we start there.

**What is a diverse council, in practice?**

It is a small group, usually four to six people, who meet you on a fixed cadence and are allowed to disagree with you. They should differ from you and from each other in background, function and age. At least one should sit outside the company. The council has no authority. Its only job is to test your thinking before it becomes a decision.

**I cannot take a sabbatical. Is a strategy day enough?**

A strategy day is a start, if it is protected and recurring. What matters is distance from the daily stream, long enough to think about next year rather than this week. I suggest one day a month away from the office, plus one longer block each year. Call it what you like. The test is whether you come back with a decision you would not have made at your desk.

**How do I know which pitfall I am already in?**

Look at your last month. If you cannot name someone who told you something you did not want to hear, start with isolation. If most of your diary was reacting, start with signal overload. If every decision you took paid off within the year, start with short-term tunnel vision. Most leaders find all three, and one that is clearly ahead.

## Sources

1.  [It’s Time to Acknowledge CEO Loneliness](https://web.archive.org/web/2015/https://hbr.org/2012/02/its-time-to-acknowledge-ceo-lo) — Harvard Business Review, 15 February 2012
2.  [Beware the Busy Manager](https://web.archive.org/web/2020/https://hbr.org/2002/02/beware-the-busy-manager) — Harvard Business Review, February 2002
3.  [How CEOs Manage Time](https://web.archive.org/web/2023/https://hbr.org/2018/07/how-ceos-manage-time) — Harvard Business Review, July 2018
4.  [Where companies with a long-term view outperform their peers](https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/long-term-capitalism/where-companies-with-a-long-term-view-outperform-their-peers) — McKinsey Global Institute, 8 February 2017
5.  [Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter](https://web.archive.org/web/2023/https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter) — Harvard Business Review, 4 November 2016

[Editorial standards](https://linusmurphy.com/editorial-standards/)

![Portrait of Linus Murphy](https://linusmurphy.com/images/portraits/linus-headshot.jpg)

**[Linus Murphy](https://linusmurphy.com/about/)**

Elite executive coach. Linus spent 25+ years as a CEO in technology and services, where the businesses he led averaged 45% annual growth, and has coached hundreds of people from more than 20 countries. He is a former Irish National Cycling Champion.

[Book a 30-minute strategy call](https://calendly.com/linusmurphy-coaching/30min)

## Related parts

[![A hairline crack across a pale concrete wall behind an empty executive desk and chair](https://linusmurphy.com/images/series/fatal-flaws-of-leaders.webp)Part 9 of 30 · Chapter 4**Fatal flaws of leaders: ego, shortcuts and exhaustion, caught early**](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/why-successful-leaders-stall/fatal-flaws-of-leaders/)[![A silver trophy cup on a dusty wooden shelf in late-afternoon window light](https://linusmurphy.com/images/series/temptations-of-successful-leaders.webp)Part 8 of 30 · Chapter 4**Temptations of successful leaders: audit the win before it audits you**](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/why-successful-leaders-stall/temptations-of-successful-leaders/)[![A forest path splitting into two trails among autumn beech trees in light fog](https://linusmurphy.com/images/series/make-tough-decisions.webp)Part 30 of 30 · Chapter 9**Make tough decisions: sort the door before you walk through it**](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/trust-under-pressure/make-tough-decisions/)[![Four relay batons lying across the lanes of an empty running track in low sun](https://linusmurphy.com/images/series/build-high-performance-teams.webp)Part 25 of 30 · Chapter 8**Build high-performance teams: safety and clarity, run as a weekly rhythm**](https://linusmurphy.com/guide/building-winning-teams/build-high-performance-teams/)

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