Leadership Mistakes: 5 You Should Avoid At All Cost

If These Leadership Mistakes Seem Familiar…Do What You Can To Fix Them ASAP!

Managers face all sorts of challenges in their day-to-day lives. On any given day, you may have to deal with unhappy employees, difficult financial conditions, or problem clients. In some cases, you can’t avoid these types of issues. But in others, these problems may be of your own making. If you’re making any of these leadership mistakes, getting the best from your team will be Way more difficult than it needs to be.

To develop a strong strategic leadership style, you’re going to have to avoid the mistakes that plague ineffective leaders. Here are five blunders that may see you end up with a high-maintenance, instead of a high-performing team.

Leadership Mistakes – Blunder #1 – Failing to Build Trust

The little things matter. There’s no way to escape that fact. However, you can’t place all of your focus on the small problems, as this prevents you from dealing with the big issues affecting your organisation.

Many managers fall into the trap of fretting about the small stuff because they don’t trust the people around them and subsequently avoid delegation. Either they’ve hired poorly, or haven’t spent the time to build connections with their team members.

As such, building trust is crucial if you are to become a great manager. It allows you to delegate the small tasks, so you can turn your attention to the bigger issues like achieving results.

Leadership Mistakes – Blunder #2 – Not Offering Feedback

Providing skilful feedback allows you to steer your employees in the right direction, while also ensuring they stay engaged with their work.

This is especially true in the modern workplace. A recent PwC survey found that almost 60% of those surveyed want feedback at least once a week. Many of those people would prefer to get feedback daily.

If you aren’t offering feedback, you need to ask yourself why. The statistics show your employees value feedback, which means you must make time for it. Arrange regular meetings, and try to set time apart to speak to team members individually and often.

Leadership Mistakes – Blunder #3 – Setting a Bad Example

Your team members will look to you as an example of how they should act in the workplace. If you don’t appear to be putting the work in, your team may follow suit.

You must be conscious of how you act and talk in front of your team. If they see you openly making personal phone calls during work hours, you can bet that they’re going to feel like it’s okay to do the same thing. The same goes if you talk about anyone else in the team behind their back.

Follow any rules that your organisation has. Remember it becomes extremely difficult to criticise your team members’ behaviour if you’re setting a bad example yourself.

Leadership Mistakes – Blunder #4 – Not Knowing What Motivates Your Team

High performing teams enjoy high motivation levels. Their leaders understand what drives each individual and use that information to get what they need from their teams.

Unfortunately, many managers don’t understand employee motivation. Most think that a pay rise is enough to push their employees to work harder.

Did you know that money can actually be a demotivator?  Once the pay rise has been lived with for a short while, that level of pay quickly becomes the norm and your staff member begins looking for the next bump. That leaves you looking for the next way to pay for it.

Most people don’t work for the money alone. They want to feel valued and appreciated in the workplace and understand how they contribute every day.

Most importantly, leaders must understand that motivators are different for every individual.  Too many managers assume they know what motivates someone or use the same incentive for the whole team without their input.  Do this and watch your employee engagement levels plummet.

Leadership Mistakes – Blunder #5 – Rushed Recruiting

As your organisation grows you will need to hire more people. Sometimes, you’ll be replacing a sudden departure or trying to relieve the pressure on a stressed and short-staffed team.

This leads to many managers rushing the hiring process. Instead of looking for somebody who will offer the right cultural fit to the organisation, they hire based on skills or gut-feeling alone. Worst case scenario, they end up with employees who won’t cooperate with the rest of the team and become toxic to the culture.

Rushed recruiting wastes time and money. Some international research indicates that it costs an average of 6-9 months salary to replace a position. Your new hire may also prove to be totally unsuitable for the organisation, which means you have to go through the entire process again. You can avoid this by dedicating enough time to getting your recruitment right the first time.

What to Do Next

These five mistakes will result in a high-maintenance team and a stressful career as a leader. You’ll create a workplace that:

Demotivates your most skilled employees
Doesn’t offer the feedback that people need to improve
Fails to deliver results to the organisation because it’s stuck on the minutiae.

Our next free webinar can help you avoid these critical management mistakes. We’ll teach you the leadership skills you need to double the capacity of your people.