How to Avoid Some of the Most Common Leadership Mistakes

How to Avoid Some of the Most Common Leadership Mistakes

Congratulations, you’re a leader. That’s a commendable accomplishment. So how are your leadership skills coming along? Are you helping your team members work at their highest levels and achieve their greatest success? Are you helping your company experience growth and achieve its goals? As a leader your team and your company look to you for guidance, and well, leadership.

Being a leader is more than just telling people what to do. As a leader, you help your company plan, develop, and manage its goals. You’re also responsible to empower your team members and give them opportunities to grow and innovate. If you’re doing your job as a leader the right way, then chances are you’re already practicing these skills: clear communication, confident delegation, and positive team investing.

No One Is Perfect

On the other hand, we all make mistakes, even the best leaders. What about you? Are you making some of the most common leadership mistakes? And if so, how can you change them?

Micromanaging–

This is one of the worst mistakes leaders make. Trying to micromanage everything your team does will kill your growth. You have to learn to give assignments and then allow your team members the ability to succeed or fail. This is how they will grow and learn to achieve more.

It’s important to learn each team member’s strengths and weaknesses then set him or her up for success by assigning tasks they will excel at. Don’t put undue pressure on your team by micromanaging their every move. This will lead to a lack of trust and ultimately an unhealthy work environment.

Wanting to Be Liked by Everyone–

We all want to be liked. Obviously, it feels much better to be liked than loathed. While it’s important that your team members respect you, the fact is it’s not your job to be liked. You do need to earn your team’s respect, but that doesn’t mean they have to like you, or at least not everything about you.

If you fall into this trap it can hurt your ability to lead and slow your company’s progress. That doesn’t mean you should try to be a “boss.” But rather, you should focus on doing your job well and on helping your team be successful.

Hiring the Wrong Person–

As a leader you will often have to make the final decision on whom to hire. Hiring the right people for the job is obviously critical to the success of a company, as well as your success as a leader. However, sometimes, for whatever reason, you might hire the wrong person for a particular job.

If you make this mistake, you have to recognize it, admit it, and then correct it. In order to help avoid making this mistake in the first place, ask yourself if the person will be successful, or what will they need to be successful? It might help to ask how much of my time am I able to give to help them get better?