Common leadership mistakes

“People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads and the boss drives” – Theodore Roosevelt.

Leadership is elucidated as an art of motivating a group of people to act to achieve a common goal. In a business context, it means directing staff and colleagues with an approach to achieving predetermined organizational goals. Several experts believe that leadership is about getting work done through others. If they only have to order and accomplish the task through the effort of the employees, why do many leaders fail? It’s hard? Yes! Worth the effort? I bet YES! So why do some leaders fail despite dedication, determination, devotion, and hard work? The irony is that the most common howlers are also the simplest.

1. Excessive control: – Employees don’t like micromanaging. It makes them feel distrustful. A great leader has a clear long- and short-term plan, knows how to delegate, clearly expresses his expectations for each employee, and focuses on the result rather than the process. In addition to this, it makes the team more dependent, they feel a loss of autonomy that discourages them from making decisions, restricts their innovation, on the other hand, managers while focusing on pity, may lose attention to the big picture and suffer . of physical and mental exhaustion.

2. Lack of delegation: – Many managers often do not delegate because they are always looking for perfection that can be demoralizing for staff. By striving for perfection, they set unrealistic expectations of others that become impossible to achieve and gradually lead to dissatisfaction for both the subordinate and their managers. A great leader seeks excellence, prioritizes his task and delegates. They allow their employees to make mistakes, rectify them under their supervision, learn from them, and make sure they don’t repeat them. Developing a “breakthrough” approach is critical.

3. Unclear Goals and Expectations: – Many departments face changes due to continual amendments to plans and policies by top management and never knew what to expect from themselves and others. A good leader always identified: –

4. What are the vision, objectives and mission of the organization?

5. What are the key responsibilities and authorities of each employee in your department?

6. What should they expect from others and from themselves?

7. What may be the future opportunities or threats / obstacles for your department and organization?

8. Who and when to ask for help?

9. How is each staff in your department performing and

10. Finally, CHANGE MANAGEMENT.

4. Failure to learn, unlearn, and relearn: – Great leaders are constant learners. Many organizations spend millions of dollars a year on various leadership development, communication and motivation programs. Although the program is excellent, many leaders do not implement what they have learned. Continuous learning has several mental, physical, moral, emotional, and spiritual benefits. Because you can easily adapt to changes, it kills monotony, gives a sense of accomplishment and pride, nurtures creativity and innovation, encourages trying new methods of getting the job done, and exploring alternative ways of getting work done faster and more efficiently. So the golden rule is: the best leaders are full-time, life-long learners.

5. Ineffective two-way communication: – Many managers assume that they are born with excellent communication skills that include verbal and non-verbal communication; few do not feel the need to improve their communication skills, while; Staying assumes that others will always interpret the message in any way they wish, which unfortunately may not be true. If any organization faces chronic problems like low employee morale, productivity, commitment; higher employee turnover, absenteeism, stress level, distrust; ineffective teamwork or collaboration; Dissatisfied customers and shareholders, the lack of useless miscommunication could be the root cause of the problem. A team feels valued when its leaders share necessary vital information with them. An excellent leader incorporates various techniques that allow team members to access even the smallest information, collaborate with another team member / department, share their opinions, views, ideas, suggestions, and thoughts regardless of the organizational hierarchy, and develop a solid two-way line. healthy open communication.

6. Inability to Adapt / Adjust: – Average leaders often tend to continue doing what they have been doing to repeat their past successes, but sadly with changing time, if you do what you have done, you won’t even get what you have. I mean, your formula for success doesn’t necessarily work. Even the leaders of large global companies such as Kodak, Blackberry, Yahoo, Nokia, Xerox, IBM, Toshiba, Hitachi, Motorola have not adapted or innovated, resulting in huge losses and business failures. There are also some great examples from most adaptive companies. Companies such as DuPont, Hewlett Packard, Berkshire Hathaway, Apple, Netflix, Yellow Pages, Amazon have transformed their business model over the years to survive, grow and succeed. Anyone, in fact, every department / project / process requires adaptability. We work in a dynamic world, where change is the only constant variable to respond quickly to these changing circumstances. Adaptability is the key!

7. Lack of appreciation: – Bad Leaders never give credit to their team or individual employee when they really deserve it. They prefer to use ‘I’ in success and ‘we / he / she / them’ in failure. Best Leaders use non-monetary ideas most of the time to value their people. They use simple techniques such as saying ‘thank you’, sending emails or a handwritten thank you note, appreciating, acknowledging and acknowledging the efforts of teams / individuals publicly, providing opportunities to learn, grow, improve, empowering them with more challenging tasks and responsibilities . (yes, it works), or even giving them the opportunity to contribute to key decision making to motivate them. Appreciation is the best motivation. An employee who feels appreciated is highly motivated and delivers more than set standards.

8. Inability to foster team spirit: – Smart leaders work cooperatively with their team to achieve predetermined group goals, while poor leaders fail to identify their elemental competence because success comes from the team, not from a single individual manager. Here are some highly successful techniques that will help the leader perform better with his team:

• Create joint goals.

• Celebrate success together, even failures.

• Involve team members in problem solving.

• Build cooperation, common interests, values, and mutual trust.

• Recognize the skills, experience, strengths, and weaknesses of each team member.

• Live together for excellence.

• Address and mutually resolve different interests / conflict management.

• Aim for a win-win situation for any negotiation.

• Build an upbeat work environment with a passionate “can do” attitude.

• Finally, walk-the-talk.

9. Don’t listen: – Honestly, answer the following questions to find out if your boss has good listening skills: –

YES

NOT

to.

Often interrupts the conversation.

B.

He / she immediately draws conclusions

vs.

He / she responds / gives advice immediately

D.

He / she does not respond at all

me.

Interpret things only from their perspective

F.

He / she during any conversation is often distracted by other office work.

gram.

Often changes topic / topic of discussion

h.

He / she lacks empathy

If the answer to most of these questions is Yes, beware of being caught in a bad boss who doesn’t listen well.

Although there are many advantages to effective listening, such as that you can easily gather information before making vital decisions, help resolve conflicts, build mutual trust, respect, motivate others, and foster a pleasant work environment, many managers still do not understand the value. to listen. . This may be because they cannot listen, are nervous, easily distracted, prefer selective listening, do not value the ideas of their team members, the “know-it-all” attitude, or simply because they cannot listen. I don’t even know they are bad listeners. But the good news is that with constant focus; Practice, hard work, and determination can improve active listening skills.

Simply put, mistakes are part of being human and leaders are human beings too, but a wise leader learns from the mistakes of others and makes sure they never repeat them. For the smooth and successful achievement of the organization’s objective factors such as lucid vision, proper plan, strength, and most importantly, providing and receiving genuine feedback revealing what the employer and employees are doing right and what attributes need improvement.