Leadership Mistakes One Should Avoid

There are many leadership mistakes that happen and you need to be aware of them. Most people will learn about them through personal experience or by participating at an event held by an organization like National Youth Leadership Forum. If you cannot get the knowledge through such options, you need to start learning alone. Everything starts by being aware of common leadership mistakes that have to be avoided at all costs.

Not Offering Feedback

Many business owners and managers wait until scheduled performance review until they tell employees of potentially negative behavior. This can be a huge mistake. If feedback is not provided as soon as possible, a mistake is made. As you provide really prompt feedback, you offer the opportunity to actually improve performance. If you delay this, the entire organization operates at a lower performance level.

Not Making Time For The Team

Every leader knows that from time to time it is so easy to simply get wrapped up in the workload that is present. Because of this, it is common to become unavailable for the team.

It is completely true that projects need to be delivered and you need to work really hard but not making time for the team is a huge potential leadership mistake that should never be made. As the leader or the manager is not available, the team does not have guidance and support. While a few projects end up delivered faster, in the long run productivity falls.

The Hands-Off Approach

Micromanagement is something that many leaders simply want to avoid as much as possible. Too much micromanagement can hurt the entire team, just like the opposite. The very best leaders manage to properly balance absolutely everything.

Over-friendly Approach

It is normal to have a desire to be seen as an approachable and friendly leader. This always leads to a much happier workforce. The problem is that making really tough decisions is also an important part of the job. There are always people that want to take full advantage of the over-friendly approach a leader has.

You should socialize with the team but be sure there is an appropriate balance between being a boss and being a friend. Clear boundaries need to be in place.

Not Defining Goals

When people do not have really clear goals, effective productivity is not a reality. It is practically impossible to be productive in the event that you do not know what goal you work towards. Every single effective leader out there uses SMART goals and manages based on objective. In this way, the team’s goals are perfectly aligned with the organization’s goals.

Not Properly Understanding Motivation

A huge leadership mistake is to think that only money motivates a team. Monetary rewards are a huge part of the equation but there are surely many other things that have to be considered. As an example, there are many cases in which motivation is higher as a good work-life balance is achieved. If this is the case, you might want to consider some levels of telecommuting.