Marshall Goldsmith’s 21 Bad Habits 

1. Winning too much: The need to win at all costs and in all situations. 

2. Adding too much value: The overwhelming desire to add our 2 cents to every discussion. 

3. Passing judgment: The need to rate others and impose our standards on them. 

4. Making destructive comments: The needless sarcasm and cutting remarks that we think make us witty. 

5. Starting with NO, BUT, HOWEVER: The overuse of these negative qualifiers that secretly say to everyone that I’m right and you’re wrong. 

6. Telling the world how smart we are: The need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are. 

7. Speaking when angry: Using emotional volatility as a management tool. 

8. Negativity, or “Let me explain why that won’t work”: The need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren’t asked. 

9. Withholding information: The refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others. 

10. Failing to give proper recognition: The inability to give praise and reward. 

11. Claiming credit that that we don’t deserve: The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success. 

12. Making excuses: The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it. 

13. Clinging to the past: The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else. 

14. Playing favorites: Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly. 

15. Refusing to express regret: The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we’re wrong, or recognize how our actions affect others. 

16. Not listening: The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues. 

17. Failing to express gratitude: The most basic form of bad manners. 

18. Punishing the messenger: The misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually only trying to help us. 

19. Passing the buck: The need to blame everyone but ourselves. 

20. An excessive need to be “me”: Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they’re who we are.

21. Goal obsession