Working with people is one of the most rewarding and fulfilling things you can do, but it’s also one of the most complicated and difficult. Leading isn’t giving orders; it’s delegating. Yet leadership is sometimes confused with command, and work instructions get taken as personal prerogatives.
So not everyone, however solid their professional skills, is able to lead a team properly. There are qualities that work for you and others that work against you. In a leader, some mistakes are deadly and make life hard for the person in charge of the team and for the people working with them. Sometimes so hard that one of the parties involved has to be moved elsewhere.
Some of these mistakes come from people’s innate traits, and others are wrong behaviours in the way they lead. Let’s look at some of them, reflect on each one and, if we lead a team ourselves, look for alternatives so we don’t fall into the same traps.
Short-tempered and disloyal
Count to ten before you act. That’s a motto every leader should follow. Flying off the handle in a bad mood and with harsh words is not acceptable. Those outbursts fray the nerves of the colleagues around you and throw the team off balance. It’s wise to keep your nerves in check and not let them get the better of you when work pressure or problems push you towards responding badly to colleagues and to the team.
It breeds mistrust. A team follows its leader out of trust and because it identifies with the leader and their ideals. Any departure from those foundations on the part of the person in charge can wreck their standing as a leader.
Disloyalty can be one of the main reasons a leader stops being one.
Organising the work
A leader can’t afford to say “I don’t have time”. They can delegate some tasks to their closest and most efficient collaborators, but they must always make sure to give enough time to each team member, both personally and professionally, answering their questions and paying attention to their problems.
A leader who is close to the team encourages closeness and cooperation among its members.
Paying attention to the team is part of the leader’s job and must not be neglected. Doing so is unprofessional for someone in that position.
Leading with humility
The leader sets an example for the team. Their actions should serve as a model and a lesson for others. A good leader should be willing to do every kind of task, including the ones they will later assign to their subordinates.
A leader should be humble and pass on what they know to everyone else. The true leader isn’t the one who hoards knowledge and doesn’t share it, but the one who shares their successes and failures with the team, encouraging the former and offering support through the latter.
Show what you do; don’t brag about what you can do
Some leaders think they know how to do everything and that they’re the cleverest person in the room. A leader is what they know how to do and how they do it. Knowledge matters, but so does how you manage it, and a leader is valued more for their management than for their knowledge.
Afraid of being overshadowed by the team
Some leaders don’t share information or knowledge because they think one of their colleagues might take their job. Instead of thinking about helping them grow professionally, they focus on protecting themselves from a threat that doesn’t exist, and their professional shortcomings leave them able not to lead, only to hold on to their position.
The person in charge of a team should make it more efficient by putting productive ways of working in place, even if that means training the team so its members become more autonomous and grow professionally.
Lack of imagination
Part of a leader’s job is to solve the everyday problems that keep the daily work flowing. But they also have another role: anticipating future work situations and designing processes that speed up the company’s productive tasks.
A lack of imagination shows in a lack of solutions when there’s a problem to solve.
Selfishness
A serious mistake is trying to take the credit for successes. A basic principle is to share the department’s successes with its members. If you don’t, the result can be lasting resentment within the team, which will end up hurting the department’s productivity.
A good leader should bring together the motivations of their employees and guide them towards the best results.
Too much authority
This covers situations where leaders abuse their status and turn into dictators. It’s far better to encourage people than to pressure them with threats; leadership based on fear is not a recipe for success.
Showing off your title
Don’t boast about what you are, but about what you do. Some people boast about “their position”, which is hardly an example of modesty. The ordinary leader is the one who puts themselves on the same level as the team and is one more member of it. Grand fanfare only undermines the relationships between the people in the group, and ends in failure.
See also: A recipe for a good leader
Featured image: Marjory Collins, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
