After studying communication for almost a decade, I notice we make many dumb relationship mistakes and communication errors that I’m about to share with you. I use the term “dumb” not to put you down, but to label the mistakes lots of people repeat. Put an end to these 15 relationship mistakes in no particular order:

1. Withhold Feeling

Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.Benjamin Franklin

Men are more guilty than women in withholding feelings from their partner. We tend to hide our irritation instead of revealing what annoyed us. Women are indirectly guilty of this relationship mistake. While women are more emotional than men, they withhold feelings in the sense that they blame or criticize others to indirectly express emotion. Saying, “I hate you for…!” is not a good way to express feelings. An expression of emotion is, “I feel sad about…” “I’m feeling happy you…” “I am angry!”

2. Reject Emotion

You choose a path; a direction, not an immediate outcome. You don’t choose how to feel or what pops into your head. You can choose a path that leads towards what you value or you can choose avoidance and fusion. Your choice.Steven Hayes

We may withhold feelings from someone because we reject emotion. It is uncomfortable for most people to feel guilt, shame, anger, sadness, and even love so they reject these emotions by thinking positively or generally suppressing them. Your relationships deteriorate if you suppress anger, for example, because you resent and behave bitterly with people. You feel whatever you do for a reason – accept it. The next time you feel something intense, notice if you want run from it or embrace it.

3. Blame

Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.Seneca

The failure to healthily express emotion can show itself through blame, a common relationship mistake. Look at an argumentative couple to see each person blaming the other for relationship problems. Neither acknowledges imperfection, preferring to be right. Each person thinks people ought to change instead of taking the responsibility for self-change. Victimization is a relationship mistake unhealthy for either person.

4. Gossip

Live that you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.Will Rogers

People gossip about their relationships mainly for self-pity. They seek validation the other is to blame for relationship problems. If you have a relationship problem, talk with the person you share the problem with and stop complaining about it to your friends or coworkers. The other person is not the cause of your suffering; you are because of your ignorance to the problem through gossip. If a gossiper puts the mirror on himself, he would realize the rumors hurt his relationships. A gossiper is no better than the originator of the problem. Neither roles create resolution – both compound it.

5. Negatively Interpret Behaviors

Analyses of others are actually expressions of our own needs and values.Marshall Rosenberg

Give people a margin-for-error because you do not know every detail.

A gossiper is one example of someone who interprets behavior in a negative light. Each little behavior signals a conspiracy against the cynic. If you think your husband is having an affair, anything he does will be filtered through that perspective. If you think a friend is turning against you, you will think him declining an invitation reflects such hatred.

Give people a margin-for-error because you do not know every detail. Each of us hold a piece of truth discoverable through communication. The best way to resolve your worries is to ask the person by showing interest in their life.

6. Show A Lack of Interest

There are two levers for moving men: interest and fear.Napoleon Bonaparte

Do you know what happened to your partner today? When was the last time you watched a friend play their weekly sport? When did you last ask what someone did at work? Get curious about people’s lives by asking a lot of questions and displaying attentive body language. Communication often lacks in relationships because neither person takes the initiative to learn about the other person. Interest in people’s lives makes them feel important, builds the relationship, and teaches you a lot of great stuff in the process. Think of something a person important to you enjoys then go do it with them. You may even want to take up a new hobby together like dancing or yoga.

7. Exert Excessive Control

When you say or do anything to please, get, keep, influence, or control anyone or anything, fear is the cause and pain is the result.Byron Katie

We hate being controlled and told what to do. The worst managers micro-manage to dictate employee behavior. Many angry employees echo similar remarks.

The greatest leaders give team members freedom. The same is true in families and other interpersonal relationships. If you order your teenage daughter to not smoke, research shows she is more likely to smoke. One study looked at how values transmit through families and found that children with authoritarian parents have differing values. When parents are more supportive rather than restrictive, children agree and accept similar values.

8. Try to Change People

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudice, and motivated by pride and vanity.Dale Carnegie

Whenever we try to change people, whether it be through manipulation, criticism, orders, threats, or rewards, they take on strange behavior. Do a test over a non-important issue with someone you know well. Intentionally tell the person what they are doing is wrong. The person may not change, become suddenly quiet, resent you, look at you weird, or purposefully do what you said not to do. Changing people is not the issue – what you say and how you come across is the issue.

9. Remain Unchanged

Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.George Bernard Shaw

We expect people to change while we remain unchanged. Rigid perspectives on money, family, work, emotion, and the relationship creates severe friction that can destroy a relationship. “If my coworker stopped…then I’d be able to…” “If my son stopped…then I could…” “My partner should…then I’d feel…” I’ll give you an if-statement to remember: if you don’t change, you have no right to expect people to change.

10. Keep One’s Point of View

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.Leonardo da Vinci

It is logically and mathematically irrational to conclude one can be right 95% of the time.

What is your honest estimate of the percentage you think you are right in an argument? 80? 90? 100%? I estimate most people say 95%. That means a fighting couple’s righteousness totals 190%, a formula for conflict. It is logically and mathematically irrational to conclude one can be right 95% of the time. We are not divine beings knowing of truth.

Each of us possess parts of truth that we must be flexible enough to explore. The cure to any couple’s problem is held by each person because their point of view is 50% of the relationship.

11. Deny Flaws

It takes a lot of courage to face up to things you can’t do because we feed ourselves so much denial.Zoe Saldana

Refusal to change and determination to stick to your original point of view is a pursuit of perfection. No one is perfect. We understand that in our head but emotionally do not live it out. We prefer to blame and hate others. A simple sit-down discussion where the two of you each admit three flaws about yourselves helps keep destructive perfection at bay while encouraging growth. You do not fear imperfection when mistakes are encouraged to surface.

12. Do Not Appreciate

I can live for two months on a good compliment.Mark Twain

Relationships are easy to take for granted. We devalue what we have while desiring what is out of our reach. Put effort into the relationship. You can show people you value the relationship with them through admiration. Give a compliment. Send a gift. Thank someone for a task they did. Phone one person now to thank them for something specific.

13. Judge Others

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.Carl Jung

We love to judge people. As described in my Communication Secrets of Powerful People book, there are four judgments: criticism, labeling, diagnosing, and praising. We criticize (“You are no good at helping me”), label (“You are a jerk”), diagnose (“Stop being rude because you don’t get what you want”), and praise (“You are the sweetest person for doing that”). Each judgment has its own problems too deep to described in this article.

14. Send Solutions

To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.Marcus Aurelius

It is counterintuitive that solutions kill relationships. After all, don’t solutions cure problems? More often than not in relationships, solutions create problems. We feel inferior being controlled. The problem-solver often overlooks the real issue. Solutions are usually manifestations of other dumb relationship mistakes like blame, gossip, trying to change people, and sticking to one’s point of view.

15. Avoid Other’s Concerns

The smallest pain in our little finger gives us more concern than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings.William Hazlitt

The most frequent dumb mistake people make in a relationship is avoiding their partner’s concerns. Look at any bad relationship and each person will tell you their needs are not being met. They are not being listened to, understood, cared for, loved, whatever. Good communication is the key to overcoming these problems and meeting each other’s needs.

There you have 15 mistakes people frequently make in their relationships. Follow this advice then hopefully the next time you ask someone your mistakes in the relationship, no walls break because no walls exist.

(If you are reading this and want to eliminate the communication mistakes that hurt your relationships, read my Communication Secrets of Powerful People book to discover the 12 barriers of communication. All the dumb relationship mistakes can be avoided when you understand the 12 barriers.)

“Hang out the washing”, “Stop moping around and cheer up”, “Fix what you broke”, “You need to improve your skills with customers”, “Get a new attitude”, “Obey your mother and father”. There are four reasons why such statements kill your relationships.

4 Reasons We Hate Receiving Solutions

The most common communication barrier people use to send solutions is advice. We give advice to help a person or to get things done, yet the outcome is destruction. Whether you are a child or parent, brother or sister, employee or manager, we hate receiving advice and being told what to do for four reasons:

1) Loss of control. The other person takes the reigns of our life as they control what we do. No one likes being controlled – it impedes freedom. To be in control of one’s life is a fundamental human need. Psychologists say the more you are in control of your life, the happier you will be.

If you get controlled, you respond with rebellion. Humans seek to reestablish freedom by engaging in a threatened behavior. You may refuse to carry out the order, do the task poorly, procrastinate, or blame others for the task not being completed. Your response to being controlled is natural human behavior, unhealthy for relationships. Rebellious behaviors pull apart cooperation – the fabric that binds a peaceful relationship.

Humans seek to reestablish freedom by engaging in a threatened behavior.

An insurgent individual causes the person giving advice to continue giving solutions because no change has occurred. This furthers defiance. The problem is not the nonconforming person, but the stubborn person blind enough to continue control. “They just keep doing the same goddamn thing that doesn’t work and worsens and perpetuates the problem,” says Robert Fisch, author of Brief Therapy with Intimidating Cases: Changing the Unchangeable. “What people are doing is ‘common sense’ to them. People say ‘it’s the only thing to do.’” We need to stop attempted ways of changing people that fail to work.

2) Feelings of inferiority. A side-effect of being controlled is feeling inferior. We feel like a lesser person when we lose control of ourselves. Solutions and advice prevent people from feeling good about themselves and developing a healthy self-esteem.

We seek to feel important. To make a man hate you, simply take away what makes him feel good about himself. Tell him what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. You will have yourself a lifeless human doing, not a human being.

3) The problem is not obvious. Humans are complex creatures. Even our simple processes are complex. Has someone given you advice on a serious emotional problem? The person tried to help you, but you became frustrated because he or she “just didn’t get it”.

Chances are you remained the same. You probably rebelled against the person to regain freedom. As a result, things got worse. You became angry, silent, or defensive. Perhaps the person then tried even harder to assert their way of thinking was right. This only pushed you further from where they wanted you to be. They failed to understand what you were going through. I know, I’ve been there.

Advice subtly communicates the solution to your problem is obvious. It communicates you must be stupid, incompetent, and inferior to overlook the solution. Aeschylus, an ancient Greek playwright in 500 BC, said, “It is an easy thing for one whose foot is on the outside of calamity to give advice and to rebuke the sufferer.”

When tempted to send a solution to someone, remind yourself you do not know the whole story. Even when you think you know the truth, you probably know on-side of the story – your story. Why? This leads us to the fourth reason people hate receiving solutions from others.

4) People are oblivious to the truth. Human behavior and everything we experience is like an iceberg. An iceberg’s visible tip is 10% of the entire iceberg because the ice’s density is less than the sea water’s density. The remaining 90% of the iceberg is below the water’s surface, not visible to the common eye. How the 90% of the iceberg is shaped cannot be determined by looking at the iceberg’s tip.

When tempted to send a solution to someone, remind yourself you do not know the whole story.

Our likeness to an iceberg is a double-edged sword. On one side, most people never concern themselves with understanding the 90% of a person or story difficult to see upfront. They prefer to focus on themselves, stick with what they know, and never seek to fully understand people. We don’t follow or become inspired to change by someone that doesn’t understand us.

On the other side of the iceberg of human behavior is tremendous potential for you to connect with people in a way they have likely yet to experience. People’s poor ability to understand others stores further energetic potential to have them connect with you. When someone hides what matters to them from fear of being told what to do, your understanding through empathetic communication shines a light to open them up.

It is unfortunate few people know these secrets of communication. That is why they are secrets. Most people try to make knock-out blows by giving advice, criticism, and other communication barriers. They hope to change people and their relationships through solutions, yet all this does is make people hate them and resist change.

What I have discussed here is only the first of five solving barriers you use almost everyday in your communication. This is not even 1% of information I share in my communication secrets program that teaches you how to become a charismatically persuasive people magnet. There is more to the advising barrier, four other solving barriers, and an additional seven judging and avoiding barriers you use to kill relationships, reduce your persuasive power, and decrease your charisma.

If any of this resonates a message in your life, you’re sick of misunderstanding people, and you’re tired of people resisting your helpful advice, and you want to know the true way to change people, I encourage you to learn about my Communication Secrets of Powerful People program here.

This article is beyond business to help you empower anybody to make decisions on their own while not subjecting anyone to the pain of a control freak. You learn how to avoid turning yourself into a cantankerous, controlling individual while still getting things done.

Delegation is defined as assigning responsibility of a decision or action to someone. It allows you to get more done in less time than if you tried to do the activity yourself. You must learn this skill because time disallows you to do what you want done.

Too frequently we fail to say “no” to the flood of requests which overwhelm. Effective decision-making skills given to you in the decision tree of leadership allows you to establish responsibility in people without you controlling them.

The ability to create self-reliance in people is one of the most empowering skills you can develop. You bring out the best in people, they feel powerful, and they do not feel burdened by control. Whenever you transfer responsibility and other duties under safe circumstances that lead to feelings of importance in people, you increase your personal magnetism and make people like you. With that said, let’s move onto describing the decision tree of leadership.

4 Parts of The Decision Tree of Leadership – A Model Used by Great Leaders

Objectives are not fate; they are direction. They are not commands; they are commitments. They do not determine the future; they are means to mobilize the resources and energies of the business for the making of the future.Peter Drucker

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.Ralph Waldo Emerson

Since reading Dr. Maxwell Maltz’s The New Psycho-cybernetics and Michael Hall’s Mind-lines, I realize how powerful metaphors are to learn and implement a skill. To overcome the feeling of being overwhelmed, Maxwell Maltz provides a powerful metaphor and visualization of an hourglass. No matter how much sand is in the timer, the sand only pours through the funnel grain by grain. One by one gets things done.

When we create a metaphor that is similar to a problem, we draw associations and learn something new from old information.

When we create a metaphor that is similar to a problem, we draw associations and learn something new from old information. It is abductive thinking, a creative process whereby “what could be” generates new ideas. Symbols are used to indirectly mean something else. What this means for you in layman’s terms is your knowledge about a tree has the potential to help you better empower people, free up your time, and get them to like you!

Think of a simple tree. Each day decisions are made to keep it green and healthy. For the purpose of this metaphor, we categorize a tree into four parts: 1) roots, 2) trunk, 3) branches, and 4) leafs. From the ground upwards, we have:

Roots: Root decisions have the most potential to hurt an individual, group, or organization. They are made from a lot of input and consultation with others. Once an outcome is determined to be the best, the person responsible makes the root decision. Each person is kept up-to-date with the results of the decision because the outcome affects all.

Trunk: Follows the root of the tree’s trunk. Trunk decisions have the potential to hurt an individual, group, or organization like root decisions, though to a lesser extent. A trunk decision can take into account other people’s input, but the ultimate decision is made by the person in charge. Who is in charge depends on who can initiate or omit the action. A parent can be in charge, but a trunk decision for the teen in deciding to find a job is made by their teenager. The outcome of trunk decisions should be reported immediately.

Branches:The main difference between branch decisions have with trunk decisions is the timeliness of the decision. A branch decision does not have to be reported immediately once the decision is made. The person making the decision can take action immediately without other people’s suggestions. A teen deciding to get a job is a trunk decision, not a branch decision, because the teen is the one who acts on the decision while his or her parents are influenced by the decision.

Leafs: Leaf decisions are clear and simple. Sometimes the person has faced and solved similar problems in the past. A leaf decision is the outer-most and highest level of decision-making a person can achieve. It involves making a decision and acting on it without consulting anyone. Unlike other parts of the tree that require the input of others, leaf decisions are pure independence. The person who makes the leaf decision does not notify someone what has been done.

What Happens When the Roots Die?

The foundation of a tree is its roots. Without its roots a tree quickly dies. After roots is the tree’s trunk. Tree trunks are important in maintaining the tree’s strength. Next, the trunk leads to branches. The branches of a tree shape how it looks. They need to be maintained. Lastly, leafs grow from branches. Should a leaf or branch die, the whole tree does not suffer. If the roots or trunk of the tree sustain serious injury, the livelihood of the tree is jeopardized.

In decision-making terms, a leaf decision does not mean it is less important than a trunk decision. Rather, it explains the ramifications of the decision. Leafs can die while the whole tree lives. A tree dies when its roots die. This is the most important metaphor to understand in the model. Your family should not suffer because you made a leaf decision that is actually a root decision, like buying your next house, on behalf of your family.

Leafs can die while the whole tree lives. If roots die so does the tree.

The decision tree of leadership does not takeaway a person’s ability to impact his or her family, marriage, friends, or organization. It encourages leadership while maintaining a finger tip of control. We hate being controlled and having to report everything we do to a superior. The decision tree of leadership creates freedom and empowers people to become responsible and influential. The outcome of a leaf decision can still be life-changing.

Any teenager or employee at some time experiences a shift in self-reliance where their dependence on people change. Teens desperately want freedom from their parents while employees wish their overbearing bosses would release them from their controlling grasp. A male teen wants to become his own person, but you and I know that giving someone pure independence is not a safe choice. Mistakes get made and people get hurt. The decision tree of leadership provides you with a lovely conceptual understanding of empowering another person so you grant a person their desired level of independence – while at the same time, you avoid being seen as a grumpy controlling onlooker.

Child-Parent Phenomena

In intimate adult relationships, I often see something called “child-parent dependency”. Child-parent dependent relationships have one individual termed the “child” who complies with the other individual termed the “parent”. The parent dictates who does what and who goes where. When an important decision needs to be made by the child, the person consults the parent on the problem or shifts all responsibility back to the parent.

The child of the relationship can hate being told what to do and will find an excuse to avoid the task whether through silence, avoidance, or forgetfulness. The child lacks assertive skills to solve the control issue. Child-parent dependency can be helped through the establishment of self-reliance with the decision tree of leadership. This is one of the many benefits of the decision tree.

The Six Strengths of the Decision Tree

A group, namely an organization, that follows the decision tree of leadership benefits in several ways. Firstly, employees frequently voice their pain about not having the power to implement actions they are responsible for. To change, grow, or conduct a simple daily activity, an employee monitored from their boss’ hawk-eye requires their superior’s approval. If you want employees or members of a group to enjoy what they do and feel pride, ownership, and responsibility, empower them with the decision tree of leadership.

The second strength of the decision tree of leadership is the clarity it establishes. Defining the level of authority establishes clear boundaries and expectations. If you lack expectations and clarity, you are more likely to blame someone else for a problematic result upon making a decision. When expectations are clear that empower an individual, the individual knows what is expected of him or her and works to achieve those expectations. We want to make an impact and we need to know where it is we can make our mark.

We want to make an impact and we need to know where it is we can make our mark.

The third strength is the personal and professional development the model builds in an individual. Communicate the decision tree of leadership to an appropriate person in your group and they will develop self-reliance and confidence. They become motivated to grow and work towards more leaf decisions.

The fourth strength is it increases the likelihood of good decisions. Mistakes often originate from inexperience or a lack of knowledge. A primary reason we make decisions for others is our lack of faith in the person’s decision-making skills. Parents who control their teenager’s life act from fear over their teenager’s supposed inability to make correct life decisions. A lot of unnecessary conflict can be reduced. The decision tree of leadership teaches people to swim in shallow water before venturing into the deep end. Once they get out to the deep end, they know no one is holding their hand making it all the more satisfying.

The fifth strength is the resources it frees up. People higher in the hierarchy are not bothered by problems people lower in the hierarchy can solve. The model gets people making more leaf decisions. Managers and executives are left with time to make other decisions.

The sixth strength, and one of the most powerful reasons for using the decision tree of leadership, is the large amount of personal accountability created by the model. A lack of personal accountability causes the blame-game and the involved group to not move forward as they fail to learn from past mistakes. The decision tree clearly empowers people to make decisions and leads to accountability. “The driving force behind any and all successful programs, initiatives and companies is accountability,” writes Gary Horsfall in a paper titled Accountability: The Force Behind Empowerment. “It is not possible in an environment where people feel that they have little or no control over their own destiny.”

Your Action Plan

Now you are aware of the decision tree of leadership and the power it has to transform an organization or similar group, I am going to share with you a quick step-by-step process for implementing the method. Next, I will provide some real-life examples of what decisions fit into which category of the model. Lastly, I will finish the article with an exercise to help you use the method as I want to help you go from intellectualizing the information to behavioral change and results.

To start using the method, firstly mention a new method you learned that will improve the family, organization, or team. They may not care what you discovered so you need to tune them into their favorite radio station, WIIFM (what’s in it for me). Describe specifically how they can develop more freedom, independence, and personal power if they give the method a shot.

If there is any resistance in implementing the decision tree, describe it as 30-day trial. Give it a shot for 30 days and if you do not like it, you just return to your normal ways.

Next, explain the decision tree to the person (or just email them the link to this page). Once you have done that, ask the person what categories their most common decisions fall under. Are they leaf, branch, trunk, or root decisions? Mutually work out a solution here is the secret to its ongoing implementation. When we make a choice on our own, instead of being forced into a choice, we stand by it stronger and longer.

The Decision Tree of Leadership in Action

Okay, now to provide a few examples of the decision categories. I will use a teenager and a parent to demonstrate the decision tree because the majority of people should relate to and understand the example. As you read the examples, the decisions made by one family or an organization will be differently categorized to others. Individuals have different personality characteristics and situations vary.

In this example, Julie is a parent to her teenager Sam. A leaf decision for Sam could be what he decides to do in his spare time. He has shown in the past that he does not need to be “babied around” in his free time. Though, you can probably see that this leaf decision could also be a branch decision. For example, Sam may need his mother’s permission for her to drive him to the local sports field.

A branch decision for Sam could be deciding what University to attend. While some parents control their child’s education more so than others because of price and other variables that differ between countries, the university Sam decides must fit in with what he wants. Once he has made the decision, it would be helpful for his family and parents to know his decision as soon as possible, though he is not required to tell them immediately. Sam can ask for other’s opinions as to what they think about the issue, but the decision is for Sam to make.

One possible trunk decision for Sam is housework. Julie gives Sam a moderate amount of freedom to choose what chores he wants to do. Sam is influenced, not controlled, by his mother’s input into the decision. Whether Sam does or avoids the chores, his final decision affects his family to a minor extent.

A root decision for Sam could be borrowing his parent’s car. The implications of taking his parent’s car without permission greatly affects Sam’s family. One possible affect is them being stuck at home with no means of transport to get somewhere important. Safety is also an issue because Sam’s parents would be concerned for his whereabouts.

It can be tough to decide whether a decision is a leaf or branch, branch or trunk, trunk or root, but it does not matter. Not every decision needs to fit perfectly in the model. You can be imprecise. It is a model to help you – not one you must live by. Close enough is good enough if you have mutual agreement.

How to Be a Great Leader Right Now

To implement the decision tree of leadership in your family, organization, or other group, here is a simple exercise to do. Over the next week, write down your most common branch, trunk, and root decisions. Ignore leaf decisions if you want because there may be too many to list. Once you write your common decisions in the categories, you will see what areas you, or other people, are independent in and how your many decisions affects other group members. The exercise will help categorize and track what is going on.

The grand purpose of the decision tree is to establish freedom and personal growth. We hate being controlled and made to feel like a caged animal at the zoo. The decision tree of leadership empowers people to make decisions they would like to make or once could not make. Follow the decision tree of leadership to nurture growing relationships free from thorns of controlling people.