Becoming a truly effective leader is not easy, so having a deep appreciation of mistakes commonly made by leaders (so you can avoid them) is always helpful.
To jump-start your process of self-reflection, consider 5 common mistakes often made by leaders. Here’s a recap . . .
- Absence of a clearly defined vision.
- Minimal communication.
- Not holding others accountable.
- Not recognizing good performance.
- Over managing.
Do any of these common mistakes “ring a bell” — sound like something you may be “guilty” of? Effective leaders need to know where and when they make mistakes so taking this initial inventory is vital. But simply knowing isn’t enough. Knowing must be followed by overcoming — and that’s the tough part! Why? Because our behaviors become habits and changing habits — from smoking at home to not sharing information at work — takes real effort. Effort, in our opinion, that’s worth doing!
Here’s an example . . .
At some point you made a choice to skip filling people in on what they needed to know for one or another reasons. Perhaps you’ve been “too busy” — today’s universal “let yourself off the hook reason” for not doing something.
To make matters worse, somewhere along the line, not filling people in stopped being a conscious choice and just became a bad habit — one done without much thinking at all. Some estimate that as much as 40% of what we do each day is habit! Which is good if most of your habits are great ones — like always exercising, eating right, and doing more listening than talking. But for many leaders some of our most common habits, have become our most common mistakes.
Once you recognize this, and begin to recognize your poor habits, you can begin to unlearn them and relearn better ones — but that too will take a bit of time. And that is where focus, commitment, and yes, willpower come into play. Willpower is one of the concepts that we do not think much about, but makes a difference in attaining success in any endeavor.
Want to learn more about willpower? Here’s a great article:
What You Need to Know about Willpower:
The Psychological Science of Self-Control
To improve your ability to overcome bad habits, we suggest you begin to focus on strengthening your overall “willpower muscles” with these simple but powerful habit changing steps. Apply them to your common leadership mistakes and we think your overall effectiveness will soar.
Step
For Example
Breaking bad habits and making better ones is essential to becoming a better leader. To do this, take a good hard look at your bad habits, admit them, and move forward to change them with willpower and self control. These two traits — often seen as old fashioned or outdated — remain cornerstone behaviors of successful leaders.
Here’s a great read on the subject of “habits” that’s bound to become a new classic:
The Power of Habit:
Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
Additional Insights . . .
- Try this article on successfully fixing bad work habits.
Bad Habits At Work You Don’t Know You Have - As a leader, helping others break bad habits is also key. Here are a few helpful articles for your staff—-and of course for you to reinforce your knowledge too
How to Break Bad Habits in the Workplace, Successfully
3 Lessons from Making Mistakes at Work
Trust and Integrity — Lapses are not an option