Mistakes That You Must Avoid To Be Good Leader

As a new leader, you are prone to making mistakes that can be avoided. Here are 8 mistakes of some of the most mistakes that leaders make and how they can be avoided.

Dominating in all Decision Making Processes

This is one of the top rated mistakes as evident from many blog posts that have in the past highlighted it. Trying to dominate all decision making process will turn you from a leader to a micro-manager. The best leaders have clear understanding that numerous decisions have to be made but they don’t try to do them all personally. Instead, they allow other team members or employees to make them as a way of developing their leadership skills. Remember this is one of the most important virtues that all leaders must have.

Think You Know it All

The main reason why you are at a leadership position is because the senior management team believes that you have the capacity to lead the organization in the right direction. Hence, thinking that you know everything is counterproductive regardless of how smart or educated you are. Employees actually don’t like working with people who pretend to know everything even when they don’t have a clue of what is happen. Strong leaders are always looking for opportunities to learn new skills and expertise every day.

Not Being Vigilant

Just because you do not report to anyone does not mean that nobody is watching or monitoring what you are doing. One way of dooming yourself as a leader is being one person while working and a different person when away from your workplace or business. Based on this fact, as a leader you need to act and behave as a leader 24/7.

Being egocentric

One of the fastest ways of failing as a leader is by being egocentric. The quality and effectiveness of a team is quantified by the results of the people. Ideally, if the results are greater as team than individually, then it’s very true and clear that the leader is doing his work perfectly and as per the leadership fundamentals. To achieve this, you need to ensure that all your acts benefit the entire team and not just one or two members. Also, you should consider the organization and how it will benefit from the decisions that you make.

Poor Communication Skills

Good leader should have excellent communication skills. You need to realize how quickly what you say can be misinterpreted by the recipient or audience. One of the best ways of ensuring that you communicate effective is by ensuring that everything you say is verifiable and can be substantiated. Misinterpretation is one of the things that will sink you as a new leader. Also note that not just words can be misquoted or misinterpreted, your body language and actions can spell doom on your leadership and even cost your job if you are not careful.

Being Afraid and Lack of Confidence

It goes without saying that it’s very easy to lead a team when everything is working as expected. For example, managers can easily steer their companies to the right direction if they are making profit. Unfortunately, some managers lack the capacity to do the same when the economic environment is unfavorable for doing business. As a leader, you should be able to stand up confidently and make the tough call. This will in turn help you to earn respect and other staff members will be confident about your leadership skills. It is much better to make a wrong decision during when the going gets tough rather than sitting back and waiting for the issues to work themselves out.

Not Reading Between the Lines

Before signing any document, you need to read between the lines to get a clear understanding of its contents. The same case applies to leadership, there is need for you to realize that the most important thing is what happens when you are not around or present. For example, how do the employees behave when you are out of the country on business trip? Do they come to work late? Do they obey the stipulated work ethics? The answers to these questions will help you gauge quality of your leadership. The best leaders can step away from an organization without causing any reduction in efficiency and performance of the team. One of the best ways of doing this is by developing people who can do the right thing at the right time.

Trying to Lead Customers

This is one of the most common questions that sales managers make. Your work as a sales team lead is to lead and ensure that your team achieves the set sales targets rather than leading the customers. Otherwise, if you do that, you will be undermining the skills and capability of sales personnel in your team.

Now that you know the common mistakes to avoid, go ahead and reinvent yourself as a reputable and reliable leader starting today.