Are You Making These 3 Leadership Mistakes?

Chances are, the reason you’re here reading this is because you want to excel within your leadership role. You don’t want to make mistakes. You’d like to learn from the experiences and mistakes of others. You continue to expand your knowledge base for ways to improve, develop your self-awareness, and contribute positively to your organization’s culture. 

You are to be commended for your pursuit of self-improvement with a focus on positively impacting those around you.

You may wonder though, what types of mistakes to avoid when it comes to leadership? 

After years of experience, we have compiled a list of three top leadership mistakes to watch out for and learn from:

Inaccessibility – We’ve spoken before about the importance of delegating as a leader, but that does not mean that you hand over tasks and then completely check out. This can lead to your team members and employees feeling abandoned in their roles without the support needed to reach their potential and complete what’s been assigned to them.

Effective delegation involves you as a leader to stay connected and accessible. You need to set up clearly defined channels of communication and expected response times for those who rely on your direction. People need to know that they can and will receive the help they need when they need it. This ultimately builds trust and respect within your team and even further for your organization. 

Only providing feedback during performance reviews – This is a crucial point because many people shy away from having tough conversations even when the outcome would be valuable for all parties involved. People don’t typically enjoy friction or perceived conflict. Constructive feedback doesn’t need to fall under the category of conflict. Reframing the perception of feedback by engaging in it regularly will help to lessen the fear and dread associated with typical performance reviews. If someone doesn’t know any better, they cannot do any better.

Therefore, if you want your employees to excel in their performance, give them the tools to do so. Let them know the strengths you have personally observed and the areas they could develop and improve upon. Then give them opportunities to learn how to expand their skills. When you take the time to observe these details about your team members on an ongoing basis, you invest your time and energy in them. You are demonstrating they are valued and their roles are vital to the overarching goals of your company. At the end of the day, giving regular feedback will help those performance reviews seem less daunting for everyone involved.

Lack of connection – This mistake can happen without even noticing, especially if the leader is not inclined to foster human connection with others. To overcome this leadership mistake, one must be interested in each person as an individual, and not just as a cog in a wheel. It involves learning what motivates and drives them, how they approach situations, and developing their strengths, rather than just “clicking” with their personality. This connection is deeper than surface-level interactions. It involves developing a bond with the person and recognizing that their emotions are an integral part of who they are and even a force of motivation for them. 

Have you identified a specific area that you or your leadership team could improve upon? Then this blog accomplished something great. Should you wish to receive the support necessary to avoid and improve on these potential leadership mistakes, please get in touch with us at . Let’s continue to make work work!