By Brigette Hyacinth.
A study published in the Harvard Business Review claims two in five chief executives fail in the first 18 months of leading an organisation.
One third of chief executives from Fortune 500 companies don’t make it past three years.
Achieving goals requires your teams’ support and commitment.
If your team is not on board, this could lead to you being unsuccessful in your leadership role.
Here are four of the most common pitfalls or traps that bad managers fall into.
The Marionette Trap:
The challenge for any leader is working within pre-defined parameters, yet being able to apply their own talents to achieve results.
In an age of uncertainty, many leaders are yielding to this trap of just playing it safe to preserve their position and privileges.
They just follow orders. They never stand up for their team or question policies.
The sad part is your employees are listening and seeing everything and are murmuring behind your back.
If you have to be continuously directed, you are a puppet.
There must be a balance; you want to impress those at the top, but what about your employees?
In the end no one takes you seriously, neither the board you are trying to impress nor the employees you have ignored.
The King Kong Trap:
Some leaders immediately forget where they came from.
This type of leader possesses a superiority complex and likes to draw the distinction between management and staff.
Great leaders don’t talk down to their employees or make them feel inferior.
How can you motivate the troops when you are out of sight?
Come down from the mountaintop and mix and mingle with your subordinates.
Show respect, not just for your employees, but all those you come in contact with, inclusive of the kitchen attendant, janitor, security guard and so on.
Your in-house reputation will quickly spread.
The Superman Trap:
They think the organisation revolves around them.
This trap includes making all of the decisions solo, ignoring feedback they don’t like and taking the credit.
Letting your ego get ahead of you and thinking you know it all is a sure path to failure.
Be generous with reward and recognise publicly.
Use collaborative skills to arrive at solutions and admit what you don’t know.
Showing some vulnerability allows you to strengthen relations with your team. You’ll build trust more easily.
The Taskmaster Trap:
Micromanaging and breathing down someone’s neck all the time can be very disheartening.
Sometimes knowing when to step back and let your employees do their work is what they need.
Micromanagement suffocates, demoralises and kills creativity.
If you hired someone, it means you believe they are capable of doing the job — then trust them to get the job done.
You don’t need to be constantly monitoring their every movement.
The best ideas and advancements are a result of empowering your team.
Do you brush over your teams’ successes, automatically working towards the next goal with a bland acknowledgement?
Are results your only motivator?
Continuously drilling employees is a sure way to lose points.
If you ignore the wins of your team, you miss a crucial opportunity to not only inspire, but build a more personal connection with your team which can give your leadership personal brand a boost.
Most organisations put clients first while employees are just secondary.
Employees are the branches of a tree that makes an organisation grow. They are your best ambassadors.
If we treat people only as the means to an end, we will never have their loyalty.
Don’t just consider them as a robot on your cog-like production line.
Demonstrate that you value people and they in turn, will take care of the clients.
*Brigette Hyacinth founded the MBA Caribbean Organisation which conducts seminars and workshops in leadership, management and education as well as providing motivational speeches. She can be contacted at www.mbacaribbean.org.
This article first appeared on Brigette’s blogsite.
