7 Key Mistakes Leaders Can Make and How to Avoid Them.

Are you in a leadership role with little to no formal leadership training or transitioning into leadership for the first time?

Stuck in a rut and/or not getting the respect and reaction you expect from your team.

Did you know that 8 out of 10 people, in situations similar to you, will do little about it and hope that the situation will eventually improve.

There is a solution for the 20% who want to do something about it. Here it is:

“The 7 Key Mistakes Leaders Can Make and How to Avoid Them“

Mistake #1.

They don’t provide appropriate feedback, praise or redirection.

Provide as much feedback as possible and whenever an opportunity arises. Be it on Job Performance, involving competency and an employee’s ability to perform a specific task or Work Related behaviour, involving the way in which the employee performs their task. Whether they speak politely to your clients, for example and how they work co-operatively with other team members.

Your feedback should be:

Relevant - Your feedback must be relevant to the person’s career, goals, objectives, or tasks.

Specific - Be clear and concise with your feedback. Feedback like, “You’re doing a great job” isn’t bad, but “You are doing a great job in meeting your quarterly objectives” or “You did a great job handling that upset client this morning” is more useful.

Timely – Provide feedback that is current. It is far more effective than waiting for the next one-on-one or the performance review. The quicker a desirable behavior is reinforced, or valued, the more likely it will be repeated.

Valuable - Your feedback must fulfil that internal sense of being valued in that individual.

Accurate - If your feedback is inaccurate, the receiver will negate the positive effects as it may seem as you do not care about the situation and that you may be acting falsely.

There are two rules a good leader should remember:

(1) “Praise in public, criticise in private” -

If you criticise in public you may cause embarrassment and you lose respect from the whole team and not just the target employee.

(2) “Team gets praise for success, boss gets credit for failure” -

As a leader you must accept responsibility for the team’s lack of success. When you as a leader receive praise for your team’s performance, you must give credit to the team members.

Mistake #2

They don’t listen to or involve others.

Seek first to understand then to be understood.

Keep your emotions in check and allow everyone the opportunity to speak.

Listen for unspoken fears, concerns, moods, and aspirations.

Listen for tell-tale signs of impending trouble.

Listen with positive regard for people’s strengths and abilities.

With good listening skills, you will win people over, build a good rapport with them and you also obtain the information you need from them as it necessitates in any work situation.

Be open to and invite opinions. Regularly encouraging your people to express their points of view and bring all points of view to the table.

You CAN get more from your employees – more ideas, more loyalty, more commitment – if you share your business goals with them and listen to their ideas.

Make a plan for involving employees in the full scope of the business.

Introduce a regular business briefing for employees at weekly or monthly meetings. Keep talking and keep staff up to date on progress.

Mistake #3

They don’t develop flexibility and capability to adapt their leadership style.

Leaders need to have capabilities, not styles.

To have a signature style that is known by others is to advertise that you lack ability to adjust fast enough in a modern fast changing environment.

It’s better to have broad capabilities and the flexibility to adapt your leadership to a style that is appropriate to the person, task, situation and the organisational environment.

Eveyone has a different perspective on things and their perceptions vary.

To be most effective: INFORM and INSPIRE.

- Create a conversation culture,

- Help understand why and what,

- Be clear and concise with your communication,

- Explain the why of decisions,

- Create a vision and set a clear way forward,

- Motivate to take action,

- Establish accountability,

- Shift perspectives and manage context.

Mistake #4

They don’t set clear goals and objectives.

The most well known method for setting goals is the S.M.A.R.T way:

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.

By having SMART goals, you know exactly where you want to go and by when, and that will help you to make the necessary decisions to attain those goals.

Be Specific when setting your goals or objectives. Set goals that are detailed, focused and well defined. That is the goal/objective is clear, straightforward, emphasises action and the required outcome.

Identify the Measurement source where you are able to track the results of your actions as you progress towards achieving the goals. If you can’t measure it you can’t manage it.

Your goals need to be Achievable and not too far in the future to maintain motivation and to strive towards its attainment.

Be Realistic about goals, especially with team goals. Get to know your team’s strengths and weaknesses and set your goals/objectives accordingly.

Apply Timely deadlines for the achievement of the goals. Deadlines create the necessary urgency and prompts action.

Mistake #5

They don’t train and develop their people.

Use a combination of activities. For best results, regularly employ a variety of different performance management and training activities and settings -

one-on-one coaching, group coaching, reviews, formal group training and presentations, group and individual exercises and activities.

Done right, the cumulative effect of various activities and angles will have a far greater impact than the sum total of its individual elements.

• Supply employees with reading material. The most critical part of employee training and development is retention of the training information. The ability to refer back to printed information can help the process. Even if you don’t have a company manual, custom-made worksheets outlining procedures and expectations can be a useful addition to your training program.

• Walk through procedures several times. Explain each step thoroughly and encourage questions. When they are ready, have him or her perform the tasks as you watch. Correct mistakes in a supportive manner; it takes time to learn a new set of procedures.

• Explain the reasoning behind step-by-step procedures. Employees pick up procedures faster when they understand the reasoning behind them.

• Assign a mentor. The “sink or swim” approach rarely works among employee training techniques. Assigning a guide to ease the transition to independent working helps the employee acclimate to the position, while freeing your time for other duties.

Mistake #6

They don’t treat people with respect.

Treat others as you wish to be treated.

An essential leadership skill is the ability to treat people with respect, while still giving them constructive criticism and let them know what is expected. There are very simple ways to treat people with respect and much of it has to do with body language.

When you shake someone’s hand look them in the eyes. When you pass someone in the hall, nod your head and recognise them, no matter what level in the organisation/business they are.

• Treat people with courtesy, politeness, and kindness.

• Encourage co-workers to express opinions and ideas.

• Listen to what others have to say before expressing your viewpoint. Never speak over, interrupt, or cut off another person.

• Use people’s ideas to change or improve work. Let employees know you used their idea, or, better yet, encourage the person with the idea to implement the idea.

• Praise much more frequently than you criticise. Encourage praise and recognition from employee to employee.

• Include all co-workers in meetings, discussions, training, and events. While not every person can participate in every activity, do not marginalise, exclude or leave any one person out. Provide an equal opportunity for employees to participate in committees, task forces, or continuous improvement teams.

Mistake #7

They do the work of the team.

New leaders especially are often more comfortable completing the tasks that their team should be doing than they are in taking the lead role. Or, they think it is just faster and easier to complete some tasks themselves instead of taking the time to train someone else.

Don’t fool yourself into not delegating by thinking you are helping the team by taking on some of the workload. By refusing to delegate effectively, you are robbing your team of the opportunity to learn, grow, and develop. Remember that a leader’s role is to accomplish results through the work of the team. So, point your team members in the right direction and support them through coaching and training.