Are You Guilty Of These 12 Common Leadership Mistakes?

 

Do you want to be loved? Do you always follow your instincts? Do you never make mistakes?

Leadership probably isn’t for you.

True leaders understand being loved isn’t a valid measurement of efficacy. They accept their instincts can be wrong, or irrelevant.

And they appreciate that failure can be a great teacher.

It can also be a bully. But it’s a worthy sparring partner. Every day you show up and risk failure. You win, or you learn.

What errors have shaped you?

To err is human. And thank god that it is, otherwise how would we be able to forgive others, or ourselves?

But what about leaders and managers? How much grace do they deserve?

Mistakes at the top can trickle down and destroy an organization, company, or group from the inside.

The effects can be monstrous, impacting:

• The bottom line
• Customer satisfaction
• Company culture
• People’s livelihoods

To name but a few.

With this in mind, when was the last time you took steps to actively address an error?

If you regularly do this, fantastic. If you don’t, not mind.

For leaders new and old, here are 12 mistakes we are all capable of making.

Don’t get caught out.

#1. Restricting praise (or over-doing it)

Praise is a tool. It’s not inherently good or bad. How it is used colors its effectiveness.

A common mistake is not giving enough.

Sometimes, you’re just so busy you forget. It could also be that you feel you did most of the work and praising that person might reinforce some bad habit. You may also prefer to give everyone group credit, rather than focusing on individuals.

Each of these approaches can serve a purpose, but none is effective as a general rule. Being too busy to praise hardworking staff should be a red flag. If you’re busy, they probably are too. Praise here will go a long way.

If you don’t praise because you did most of the work, how much of that was your fault? Did you allow them the chance to shine? And if you did give them responsibilities, did you adequately prepare them so they could do well?

For group credit, this is better than nothing. But most people would benefit from specific, individual praise. It feels more genuine, and it feels more thoughtful.

The opposite can also do damage. Too much praise removes incentive. If you’re always really understanding, it starts to hurt less when they make mistakes. It can also devalue praise. Like any currency, it dilutes when in surplus. So choose when to give it carefully, and make sure it’s powerful when it is used.

#2. Micro-managing

This is almost always a result of a lack of confidence in our own abilities or a lack of faith in our team.

If we lack confidence in ourselves, we can feel obligated to get involved in everything and then check and double-check.

If we lack faith in our team, we can develop a bit of a toxic ‘only I can fix it’ or ‘they need to know I’m watching’ mindset.

This level of high-intensity management can leave people feeling smothered, restricted, under pressure, and not trusted.

Aim instead for a little autonomy, and then use the energy you would have spent on micromanaging instead of throwing your support behind your team to get the best out of them.

You’ll grow as a leader and they’ll grow as a team.

Supoib.

#3. Using the wrong communication medium

Emails for urgent things, messages about trivial matters to their personal phone during personal time, and meetings that could have been emailed. We’ve all done it. We shouldn’t. It sucks. We suck.

But there is a better way!

Steal this easy reference guide:

World-ending crisis — interrupt personal time

Urgent — face-to-face or call

Nuance and discussion — agenda or email followed by a meeting, clarified with minutes.

Long-term or non-urgent — email thread

#4. Surprise Meetings

Nobody likes being caught off guard.

If something is so important it needs a meeting, even at short notice, it’s still important to make sure whenever possible to provide an agenda, and to check people’s schedules so the meeting can at least seem like it’s taken everyone’s time into consideration.

The quickest way to burn bridges with your team is to disrespect their time. If you spring a meeting on them, you’re not giving them time to prepare notes to bring maximum value — restricting their ability to feel like they make a difference.

Similarly, if you make them sit through something that ends up not being so urgent, and yet you’d forced them to work around you, they could use this as justification to be late on a deadline, lose respect for you as a leader, or feel unsettled as they never know when you will make these knee jerk demands of them.

Be organized, and if the worst does happen then at least be flexible, open-minded, and apologetic. It’ll go a long way.

#5. No oversight/monitoring system

Many people hate to be thought of as a micro-manager, but the other end of the spectrum can be equally frustrating.

Clear monitoring and evaluation systems, along with transparent criteria, set clear boundaries and expectations, so everyone can feel comfortable doing their best work.

#6. Not stopping to think

It’s important as a leader to be decisive, fast acting, and confident to take action. However, it’s also important to think before you act.

If you optimize for speed, and neglect thought, you’re on a fast track to disaster. It’s only a matter of time before your lack of foresight catches up with you.

Even if there’s never one big event, it can erode your management capital as your team time and again see you make poor, instinctive, impulsive decisions that cause problems that could easily have been avoided.

Sometimes, a few breaths and a pause for thought can completely change the situation and offer other, better paths of action.

Give yourself that chance. Take this simple step.

And if you struggle to get a clear head under pressure, try tactical breathing:

1. Breath in for four seconds through your nose, expanding your stomach
2. Hold for four seconds
3. Breath out through your mouth for four seconds, squeezing your stomach
4. Hold for four seconds

After 2 or 3 of these bad boys, you’ll likely be in a very different state of mind. All you need is that simple pattern interrupt to shake off the cobwebs.

#7. You’re nice

Believe it or not, this can be one of the worst things a leader can be.

People rarely respect nice.

Nice can mean friendly, but it can also mean ‘people pleaser’.

And though it’s of course nice to leave your team feeling pleased, you don’t want them to think you lack an edge, a spine, or the ability to say ‘no’ when necessary.

It’s better to be respected than liked.

It’s infinitely better to be thought of as capable than nice.

#8. Abstract goals

If you set unclear goals or aims (e.g. “attract better customers” or “make the product nicer”) you’re saddling your team with the challenge of multi-stream thinking.

Rather than being able to dial in on actions and focus on finishing, they’ve got to figure out their destination first.

If we want someone to get from California to New York, this is a goal. If we say ‘drive’ or ‘fly’, we’re also giving them directions, instructions, or expectations. But if we said ‘meet me in America’, or ‘meet me in my favorite state’, we’re adding additional work. We’re creating a mystery.

Be clear, and consistent.

#9. Poor feedback

There’s a misconception that people intrinsically don’t like feedback or criticism. My experience has taught me otherwise.

A while ago, I undertook an appraisal system evaluation within my company, where we asked employees about their views on how they were appraised and managed.

Nearly all employees complained about poor feedback from their supervisors. The most common gripes were:

• Poorly handled feedback in the past made people distrust the value of it in the future
• Regular negative and poorly worded feedback
• Only getting feedback when there were problems
• Lack of clarity on how to fix the issues raised
• The purpose of the feedback wasn’t clear

Feedback is about you, someone with skill, knowledge, or responsibility, evaluating and coaching someone else who’s perhaps not so far ahead in their development. This includes giving them areas they could improve, and the tools and/or support to do so.

To be effective, feedback should be:

• Linked to a clear example
• Constructive
• Actionable
• Delivered in a way consistent with the receiver’s personality
• Both positive and negative

#10. Not practicing what you preach

Nobody likes a hypocrite. It can make you can seem anything from aloof to arrogant.

Instead, cultivate a mentality of humility and respect.

Set an example to follow, not a script. Instill principles and values rather than strict SOPs. Be open about your approach rather than avoiding things in the open so as to avoid judgment.

Your team will learn a lot from seeing how you rise to challenges and recover from setbacks.

Embody that which you expect from them.

#11. Not developing (yourself or others)

You can’t grow if you don’t actively focus on development.

Too many leave this to chance, especially those who have been doing a job for a while. Some even forget they don’t know everything!

Consider the difference between a chess player and a psychiatrist. A chess player gets real-time feedback on their performance. If they make a wrong move, they’re punished by their opponent.

But for a psychiatrist, they don’t get this real-time feedback. Patients can sometimes say they’re getting better to please their psychiatrist, and due to a lack of follow-up contact, it can be hard to know if your methods truly work. This is why the difference between a recently graduated psychiatrist and an experienced one can be so different. The biggest change is confidence. Few experienced psychiatrists would describe themselves as below average, most of them answering in a study to say they were above average.

In his book, Black Box Thinking the author Matthew Syed compares this to golf. Most people get better at golf because they practice and make micro-adjustments as they play due to the feedback on how their performance is going. Imagine trying to do the same in the dark. You’d get no updated real-time feedback, as you couldn’t see what was going on. The only change would be confidence, and this would be from familiarity, not from the knowledge of an increase in skill.

Leadership can be like this.

We can sometimes struggle to get effective feedback on our actions, as our advice and actions can sometimes result in a lack of problems, or problems delayed or pushed into another department’s purview.

For some, this can manifest as an illusion of competence.

Leadership can be a particularly cruel teacher in this respect. Being accountable for the big decisions can be an incredibly stressful and daunting prospect, and the easiest way for many to deal with this is to develop a shell of confidence so as to be able to make any decisions at all.

You latch on to any signs you’re doing a good job. You crave that validation.

But it’s an illusion.

Instead, you will need to craft metrics around effort, process, self-effacement, and humility.

For developing your team, you’ll need to ensure you nurture the kind of relationship that affords you the respect and trust you’ll need to leverage when giving them feedback.

You can’t always point to definitive evidence about why a situation could have been handled better, or why a certain skill would help for certain things. As above, your team may lack the perspective to see for themselves too.

Development is forever, not just when you encounter a problem!

#12. Managing activities rather than leading people

How can you judge whether a manager is good?

Many organizations answer this question by measuring performance based purely on delivered results. Though there’s merit in this, it misses a fundamental part of management; leading people to the results.

The problem with only focusing on that which can be measured is we often, by extension, optimize for this.

Think about how this works in schools. When a teacher knows their performance and therefore bonus is linked to their student's test scores, they may start teaching only that which comes up on the test. Their students may score highly, but they will likely be missing fundamental critical thinking skills and an awareness of the knowledge around their subject.

In an organization, if you’re only focusing on the bottom line and you forget about the individuals, how are they growing?

Don’t forget to account for the immeasurable. Lead the people. Develop the team. Get results, but not by neglecting the team.

Conclusion

Being a leader is hard. And like anything hard, it’s riddled with opportunities to make costly mistakes.

So hold yourself accountable and prepare yourself to be successful by remembering these 10 lessons:

1. Be careful with praise; don’t overdo it, and don’t restrict it. Use it as a tool.
2. Avoid micro-managing.
3. Choose the appropriate way to communicate with your team for different needs.
4. Meetings are not a welcome surprise. Schedule them in advance and provide an agenda.
5. Stop and think, don’t just rush in.
6. Find the balance between hands-on and hands-off leadership
7. Be good. Be effective. Act respectfully. Don’t be nice.
8. Set clear and achievable goals.
9. Give useful, actionable, constructive feedback.
10. Practice what you preach.
11. Never stop developing yourself.
12. Lead the people, and manage the tasks.

Forewarned is forearmed.

Now get out there and get some!