Navigating the journey to become an effective leader mirrors an adventure filled with alligators, scorpions, and quicksand before ultimately discovering treasure.
Leaders want to:
- Motivate and inspire
- Provide learning opportunities
- Build confidence
- Increase productivity
- Make work fun
But there are many dangers which can limit your achievements and successes.
So if you can, avoid these 10 pitfalls!
#1: Poor Communication
Communication serves as the lubricant for well-functioning teams. Not enough communication, and your people may not know what to do, what to prioritize, or even why they must do something.
But there exists an equally problematic and less obvious issue: Don’t assume that your message is clearly understood. Even the best team member will misremember information, especially when there is a lot of it. They may misunderstand specific points. And of course, they may completely forget.
Solutions
- Repeat information. You can use all sorts of conversations to reiterate important information. And remember: It doesn’t stem from a lack of trust!
- Use different mediums. Support oral information with messages in Slack, emails, and a shared, self-service knowledge base which everyone can access.
- Confirm comprehension with the direct report by asking them to explain information back to you. And avoid closed questions, especially: “Do you understand?” The answer will almost always be “yes,” even when not the case.
#2: Lack of Feedback
Although feedback falls under communication, it deserves a separate entry.
Enough leaders shy away from feedback, seeing it as focused only on the negative. They feel uncomfortable when handling tough conversations, so only the worst of the worst issues might get addressed. And if meaningful feedback comes only during formal performance reviews once per year, it’s too late to correct concerns and problems.
Solutions
- Be sure to provide specific, actionable feedback. It’s a powerful tool for growth and development, so utilize 1:1 meetings, check-ins, and other ongoing conversations.
- Provide feedback on “what went well.” The direct report can repeat wins for future successes.
- Provide feedback on “what needs improvement.” The direct report not only avoids mistakes going forward, but can also implement solutions.
#3: Resistance to Change
“We’ve always done it this way” signals a fixed mindset. And in an ever-changing world, what worked before may not work in the future. What’s more, your competition will continue to innovate, iterate, and move forward.
The status quo means stagnation. Although I don’t advocate that you wildly pursue every new idea that you read about, you should cultivate a mindset and culture of innovation and adaptability.
Solutions
- Create a cadence of team brainstorming sessions. Once per month works well, allowing specific opportunities to generate new ideas without burdening busy schedules.
- Tape into the knowledge, experience, and creativity by asking how to improve processes or outcomes.
- Reward new ideas and be a change champion!
#4: Imbalanced Delegation
You don’t want to unilaterally set goals with all of the specific steps, requiring frequent check-ins and updates. However, you also don’t want to abdicate responsibility, remaining outside the loop without offering any guidance or support.
In short, what balance do you set for the team to pursue their goals?
When people feel micromanaged, they tend to quit. It might be “quit quitting,” or doing the least amount of work possible. It might be “loud quitting,” or leaving the organization for a role elsewhere.
Conversely, when people feel ghosted by the leader due to a complete lack of support, they struggle with challenges and fear asking for help.
Solutions
- Discuss solutions together with each person, keeping in mind that there are many paths to reach a goal.
- Ensure you empower the team with the right tools and resources to successfully deliver on the goal.
- Schedule updates according to specific dates and milestones.
#5 Treating Everyone the Same
As you trust and empower your team, it’s important to consider experience, knowledge, and skills. However, a common mistake occurs when leaders treat each person exactly the same.
The varying skills, knowledge, and experience determine how successfully each team member carries out tasks. Their different abilities and strengths also have an impact.
As an example, let’s say a person has ten years of work experience, but is not familiar nor comfortable doing deep dives into data. As a leader, you should provide additional support. Failing to do so results in lost confidence, frustration, and outcomes which don’t meet expectations.
Solutions
- Keep in mind that effective leadership requires a balance between being hands on when needed, but also allowing autonomy in areas of competence and expertise.
- Get to know your team. You should assign responsibilities and projects which fit their strengths, but also assign new challenges which stretch their skills.
- Discuss with the direct report when and how to check in with updates.
#6: Delayed Decision-Making
Leadership requires decisiveness. And although you want to involve your team in many decisions so that you can explore ideas from multiple viewpoints and gain clarity, you must ultimately make final decisions on strategy.
The data and information never provides enough clarity. And you cannot procrastinate decisions because you worry about risks.
By delaying decisions, you erode the confidence and trust held by the team. What’s more, delaying decisions may mean fewer options, with decisions eventually being made by default because no options remain.
Solutions
- Embrace calculated risk. You won’t blindly make a decision, but you also won’t wait and wait and wait.
- Look at the data, and also tap into the team’s knowledge and experience.
- Remind yourself that you can also course correct as new information becomes available.
#7 Not Tolerating Failures
Failures are inevitable, unless you forever stick to the same narrow set of responsibilities and/or don’t make decisions. Setbacks, missteps, and mistakes will occur; however, these should all be seen as positives!
To start, failures often indicate new ideas being pursued and risks being taken. They indicate innovation.
Failures also represent an opportunity for feedback. When someone in the team makes a mistake, your input provides them with a learning opportunity. They come to see missteps as a chance to grow and improve, and without being fearful. They also become more open instead of possibly hiding the error.
But equally important, mistakes serve as a learning opportunity for you as well. Maybe your explanation wasn’t clear. Or maybe the employee needed more check-ins because they didn’t have the needed skills and experience. Or maybe the employee didn’t ask for help because they didn’t feel comfortable doing so. All of these provide much-needed insight to further improve your decisions and skills as a leader.
Solutions
- Adopt the mindset that setbacks, missteps, and mistakes provide opportunities to learn and grow.
- When failures occur, analyze the reasons and possible solutions. Employ the “5 Whys,” an effective and efficient technique for clarity.
- Fail forward. In other words, be proactive in managing failures. The new solutions lead to future successes!
#8 Lack of Humility
You may feel pressured to have all of the answers. When fielding questions from your team, you might feel the need to display a false sense of confidence.
Although it may seem contrarian, it’s okay to admit that you don’t know or have enough information. It’s okay to ask for advice and input too.
By displaying humility, you give the go ahead for your team to similarly ask for help. What’s more, they feel more comfortable in sharing ideas because they aren’t expected to always have the answers.
Solutions
- Don’t fear saying “I don’t know” or “Let me get back to you.”
- Don’t be dismissive with phrases like “Don’t worry about that” or “That’s not important right now.”
- Seek input and ideas from the team with “What do you think?” or “How would you go about doing X?”
#9 Not Managing Up
As an effective leader for your team, you set and discuss what goals to achieve. You establish preferred communication norms. You build a relationship with each person.
And the same must occur with the manager(s) above you.
Transparency is key. Not only do you want to ask questions and share information, but you also want to provide honest feedback and realistic status updates. Even with the negative, you should never report what your manager wants to hear or what you hope might happen.
Solutions
- Ask questions and understand what your manager wants and needs to achieve.
- Rather than see requests as unidirectional, information should flow in both directions. So be sure to communicate your needs and wants as well.
- Develop a productive relationship by being open and honest about what is and isn’t possible.
#10 Refusing Rest and Relaxation
There will always be an endless list of tasks, responsibilities, and projects, ranging from the daily mundane to those that end up on a wishlist. However, even when you feel as though not enough hours exist in the day, it’s vital that you find time to rest, relax, and recharge.
That means you and your team need time away, regardless of what lies ahead.
Of course, there will be better periods than others for vacation, but you should not refuse time away or consider it as an impossible luxury. When you don’t recharge, you become a less creative problem solver. Your resiliency declines. You might even burn out.
And you similarly send the message to your team that time away is not okay. They may feel guilty about taking longer vacations, thereby using less time. They may check work while on vacation. They too might burn out.
So value well-being and recognize that rest leads to a happy, healthy, and productive team.
Solutions
- Discuss each person’s well-being in your 1:1s, get a sense of their struggles and stresses, and encourage time away.
- Don’t be a martyr with phrases like “I’m too busy to take time off” or “There’s never a good time for a vacation.” You send the wrong message to your team.
- As a leader, take time for yourself!
Conclusion
The journey to better leadership takes time and conscious investment in identifying and avoiding pitfalls. As you learn and grow, you become better at avoiding obstacles. You gain more confidence. You inspire the people you lead to new achievements.
Are you ready?