10 Common Leadership and Management Mistakes PDF

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Leadership en entreprise, quelles sont les différences...

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10 Common Leadership and Management Mistakes Avoiding Universal Pitfalls Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes. – Oscar Wilde It's often said that mistakes provide great learning opportunities. However, it's much better not to make mistakes in the first place! In this article, we're looking at 10 of the most common leadership and management errors, and highlighting what you can do to avoid them. If you can learn about these here, rather than through experience, you'll save yourself a lot of trouble! 1. Not Providing Feedback Sarah is a talented sales representative, but she has a habit of answering the phone in an unprofessional manner. Her boss is aware of this, but he's waiting for her performance review to tell her where she's going wrong. Unfortunately, until she's been alerted to the problem, she'll continue putting off potential customers. According to 1,400 executives polled by The Ken Blanchard Companies, failing to provide feedback is the most common mistake that leaders make. When you don't provide prompt feedback to your people, you're depriving them of the opportunity to improve their performance. 2. Not Making Time for Your Team When you're a manager or leader, it's easy to get so wrapped up in your own workload that you don't make yourself available to your team. Yes, you have projects that you need to deliver. But your people must come first – without you being available when they need you, your people won't know what to do, and they won't have the support and guidance that they need to meet their objectives. Avoid this mistake by blocking out time in your schedule specifically for your people, and by learning how to listen actively to your team. Develop your emotional intelligence so that you can be more aware of your team and their needs, and have a regular time when "your door is always open", so that your people know when they can get your help. You can also use Management by Walking Around, which is an effective way to stay in touch with your team. Once you're in a leadership or management role, your team should always come first - this is, at heart, what good leadership is all about! 3. Being Too "Hands-Off" One of your team has just completed an important project. The problem is that he misunderstood the project's specification, and you didn't stay in touch with him as he was working on it. Now, he's completed the project in the wrong way, and you're faced with explaining this to an angry client. Many leaders want to avoid micromanagement. But going to the opposite extreme (with a hand-offs management style) isn't a good idea either – you need to get the balance right. The attached article, Laissez Faire versus Micromanagement will help you find the right balance for your own situation.

4. Being Too Friendly Most of us want to be seen as friendly and approachable to people in our team. After all, people are happier working for a manager that they get on with. However, you'll sometimes have to make tough decisions regarding people in your team, and some people will be tempted to take advantage of your relationship if you're too friendly with them. This doesn't mean that you can't socialize with your people. But, you do need to get the balance right between being a friend and being the boss. Also, make sure that you set clear boundaries, so that team members aren't tempted to take advantage of you. 5. Failing to Define Goals When your people don't have clear goals, they muddle through their day. They can't be productive if they have no idea what they're working for, or what their work means. They also can't prioritize their workload effectively, meaning that projects and tasks get completed in the wrong order. Avoid this mistake by learning how to set SMARTER goals for your team. Use a Team Charter to specify where your team is going, and detail the resources it can draw upon. Also, use principles from Management by Objectives to align your team's goals to the mission of the organization. 6. Misunderstanding Motivation Do you know what truly motivates your team? Here's a hint: chances are, it's not just money! Many leaders make the mistake of assuming that their team is only working for monetary reward. However, it's unlikely that this will be the only thing that motivates them. For example, people seeking a greater work/life balance might be motivated by telecommuting days or flexible working. Others will be motivated by factors such as achievement, extra responsibility, praise, or a sense of camaraderie. 7. Hurrying Recruitment When your team has a large workload, it's important to have enough people "on board" to cope with it. But filling a vacant role too quickly can be a disastrous mistake. Hurrying recruitment can lead to recruiting the wrong people for your team: people who are uncooperative, ineffective or unproductive. They might also require additional training, and slow down others on your team. With the wrong person, you'll have wasted valuable time and resources if things don't work out and they leave. What's worse, other team members will be stressed and frustrated by having to "carry" the under-performer. You can avoid this mistake by learning how to recruit effectively, and by being particularly picky about the people you bring into your team. 8. Not "Walking the Walk" If you make personal telephone calls during work time, or speak negatively about your CEO, can you expect people on your team not to do this too? Probably not! As a leader, you need to be a role model for your team. This means that if they need to stay late, you should also stay late to help them. Or, if your organization has a rule that no one eats at their desk,

then set the example and head to the break room every day for lunch. The same goes for your attitude – if you're negative some of the time, you can't expect your people not to be negative. So remember, your team is watching you all the time. If you want to shape their behaviour, start with your own. They'll follow suit. 9. Not Delegating Some managers don't delegate, because they feel that no-one apart from themselves can do key jobs properly. This can cause huge problems as work bottlenecks around them, and as they become stressed and burned out. Delegation does take a lot of effort up-front, and it can be hard to trust your team to do the work correctly. But unless you delegate tasks, you're never going to have time to focus on the "broaderview" that most leaders and managers are responsible for. What's more, you'll fail to develop your people so that they can take the pressure off you. 10. Misunderstanding Your Role Once you become a leader or manager, your responsibilities are very different from those you had before. However, it's easy to forget that your job has changed, and that you now have to use a different set of skills to be effective. This leads to you not doing what you've been hired to do – leading and managing. Key Points We all make mistakes, and there are some mistakes that leaders and managers make in particular. These include not giving good feedback, being too "hands-off," not delegating effectively, and misunderstanding your role. It's true that making a mistake can be a learning opportunity. But, taking the time to learn how to recognize and avoid common mistakes can help you become productive and successful, and highly respected by your team.

"Laissez Faire" versus Micro management Getting the Balance Right Can you walk the tightrope between too much and too little management? Imagine this scenario: Your boss has just handed you a big project. You're excited to get started, but she's left you with no direction as to how she expects you to go about it. She's specified the deadline and the deliverable, and has left you to find your own way. Your last boss was the complete opposite. He'd hand you a piece of work and then spend the next few weeks hovering over your shoulder, questioning your decisions and offering "helpful advice" at every turn. These two scenarios illustrate opposite ends of a management style spectrum. The first boss has a "laissez faire" management style, and the second is the classic micromanager – more politely known as a "very-hands-on" manager. Both styles can be effective in the right circumstances, but not, usually, when they're taken to extremes. As usual, the best approach lies somewhere between the extremes. In this article we'll look at each management style, and see how to find the best style for each person and situation. Laissez Faire Management The term "laissez faire" is French for "leave it be". This is a very fitting description for this style of management! Laissez faire managers are delegation masters. They leave it up to their teams to find their way through projects and tasks, and give a minimum amount of supervision. Employees often have a lot of power to make decisions with a laissez faire approach. In fact, at the extreme end of laissez faire, the manager can seem to be completely absent! Micromanagement Micromanagers are the opposite of laissez faire managers. They resist delegating, and when they do delegate, they spend a great deal of time checking up on their teams. Micromanagers focus on every tiny detail, and often discourage their team members from making decisions if they're not around. Clearly this can be frustrating and upsetting for team members, it slows work down, and it constrains the creativity that people can show. On the positive side, it does help to ensure that work is done accurately and on time. Finding the Balance So, how do you find the right balance between laissez faire management and micromanagement/hands-on management? It's worth pointing out here that managers should rarely take either of these management styles to the extreme. However, it can be tricky to know when to give more freedom and when to give more supervision, and there are a number of factors that you need to take into consideration when you're thinking about this.

Know Your Team The people you're leading have a lot to do with the management style you need to adopt. For instance, imagine you're leading a team full of senior colleagues who have a proven track record. They know what they have to do, and they've worked together countless times in the past. This is a classic example of when a more laissez faire management approach is likely to be appropriate. You still need to be there to direct the group, but they don't want or need constant supervision. A micromanagement approach would certainly do more harm than good here! On the other hand, imagine you're leading a team of inexperienced colleagues. They're not sure of their direction, or of what the company expects from them. This situation would call for a lot of management direction on your part. Understanding the people you're leading is therefore the first step in finding the balance between less management and more management. What's more, you may need to use different approaches with different members of your team – for example, you'll need to manage a new graduate in a totally different way from an experienced colleague. When thinking about the individuals within your team, you can use these guidelines to decide which style to lean towards: A laissez faire approach is likely to be best with: 

Senior, experienced, and highly educated workers.

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Teams with drive, assertiveness and self-confidence.

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Creative groups.

A Hands-On approach is likely to work best with: 

Young, inexperienced workers.

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Workers who consistently miss deadlines if left to their own devices.

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Departments where conflict is an issue.

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Teams that rely on quick decisions.

Tip 1: Culture can have an impact here, too. People in individualistic cultures such as the U.S. or U.K. can profoundly dislike micromanagement. In other cultures, a hands-on approach may be expected, and deadlines may be missed if too much of a laissez faire approach is used. Be sensitive to the culture in which you operate. Tip 2: You can find out more about the differences between specific cultures around the world in articles on Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions or in the E-book “Leading across Cultures”.

Understanding Your Situation When it comes to your situation, there are a number of factors that come into play when choosing where on the spectrum your management style needs to be. For instance, there are some jobs or projects where there is no room for error. Think about airplane construction, the safety of a team building a high-rise skyscraper, or the preparation of documents for a multimillion-dollar acquisition deal. A hands-on approach is often necessary for situations like these, and is likely to be accepted by members of your team, who should understand why you're so involved. On the opposite end of the spectrum, imagine you're in charge of a department that depends on free thinking and creativity to accomplish goals. In this situation, a more laissez faire approach is likely to work well, because your team members can't take creative risks with you hovering over their shoulders. When thinking about the situation you're in, you can use these guidelines to find the right balance: A laissez faire approach is likely to be best when: 

You're leading a creative department.

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You're a new leader and you need to build rapport with your team.

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Your department or project has flexible deadlines and self-defined goals.

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Your people have proven themselves to deliver reliably, and on time.

A hands-on approach is likely to be best when: 

The project or task calls for very specific instructions that might easily confuse your team.

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The situation is one where there is no room for error.

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Mistakes by your team will be costly for the company, or will risk people's safety.

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You're in charge of a product or task where delivering high quality outputs – or meeting tight deadlines – is the highest priority.

Analysing Wants versus Needs In the midst of this balancing act you'll also need to look at individuals' wants and needs. For example, one of your team members may want you to lay off and let him do his own thing. But if he can't get his work done and keeps missing deadlines, then he may need hands-on management. It's up to you to decide what a team member needs, perhaps at the expense of what they want. Tips: 

When working in a hands-on style, it's easy to be perceived as cold and impersonal. However, you can show your team that you're approachable by sharing stories when assigning roles, praising a job well done, or giving your team tips from some of your past experiences.

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Adopting a more laissez faire approach with your team doesn't mean that they're doing all the work, of course. You still need to monitor their progress, and make sure you're available to them if they have questions. If you step too far back, there's a very real chance your team

will feel lost. Every leader has their own "comfort zone". You might find yourself naturally drawn to a more laissez faire style, and extremely uncomfortable with the thought of handson management. But leaning towards different styles in different situations is the mark of a good leader: you're giving your team members what they need, not what you want to give. Key Points Laissez faire management and micromanagement are at opposite ends of the style spectrum. And while no one should take either style to extremes, it's definitely helpful to lean one way or another at different times. Look carefully at the members of your team, and think about the kind of situation you're working in. Then select the approach that's likely to work best....