TOP TEN MISTAKES LEADERS MAKE AT WORKPLACE

TOP TEN MISTAKES LEADERS MAKE AT WORKPLACE

Everyone aspires to leadership position especially at workplace, and that is a good desire. However it is far easier to criticize leaders from afar than to be a leader who is criticized. Sadly, most people will do better as followers than they will as leaders. Leadership, as a responsibility, comes with a lot of encumbrances; some imposed on the leader by the work environment, others self-imposed by the leader himself/herself.

As you aspire to, or actually do lead in your workplace, watch out for these mistakes that leaders have been observed to make regularly at workplace. By knowing them, you can at least help yourself out of them.

1.     Not being able to separate personality from the work.

This is a common mistake among leaders especially as work attitude is truly difficult to separate from personality behavioural tendencies. For example, for someone who loves to pour all of his emotions into his work, it is rare to find such a person not attending to something per time. You may call him a workaholic but that kind of boss thinks it is indolence when he finds an employee who is not particularly busy; not necessarily considering if that employee is through with his/her work allocation for the time being. As a matter of fact, he wonders why the employee is being paid at all. That in turn translates to needless wrangling between both parties, and eventually eye-service which is loss-loss for all concerned.

2.     Directly transferring pressure from one’s boss to subordinates. Some leaders truly don’t know how to stomach their inconvenience. You’ll find the leader’s mood and action change as soon as his own boss expresses displeasure at something. He in turn finds somewhere to pour the unease he feels, and his subordinates provide the right container for that. You might find him issue a query for something he would otherwise have overlooked. That makes the subordinates wonder what their offences are. Every leader must be an emotion container, and must know how best to deal with issues that come up without necessarily punishing his subordinates.

3.     Talking too much.

Sounds funny right? Your mind is probably racing towards some boss whom you know with this problem. It is actually a problem. Oh! How I hate to be in meetings with someone who feels he must contribute to every point raised. And, most times, the contributions are off-point! When a leader calls for a meeting, and he does all of the talking in that meeting, it will be soon before nobody listens to him again. They’ll only hear him because they owe him the courtesy as a boss, and before the meeting is over, they’d have forgot all he’s said, except the jests they want to make. Leaders should talk less really.

4.     Replacing technocrats with sycophants.

This goes for leaders who like to be worshiped - politicians. You know in Africa, one of the highest forms of respect is greeting. So, it is almost natural that your boss expects you to show up in his office in the morning to greet him. Now some bosses can take that to the extreme, and some smart subordinates take advantage of that. They curry the favour of the boss via their “respect”, get their message passed gradually, and in no time, the respect-crazy boss, begins to consider them as options to technically-sound, low-respect subordinates. Need I tell you what danger that portends for the organization?

5.     No personal appraisal.

Some leaders think it is their job to assess their subordinates, but need no personal assessment whatsoever. Of course, the subordinates are not to appraise the leader, but they are in another way. By their feedback and reactions, a smart leader could tell how well he is doing. But most leaders, especially for self-owned organizations, see no need whatsoever for personal appraisal and that helps no one. Leaders should set time out to examine subordinates’ “feel” and think on themselves, and also ask questions of others.

6.     Becoming inaccessible.

This is the “big man” syndrome. Suddenly you cannot access the person you were sharing a desk with, he sees missed calls and never returns calls, messages nor mails. He always forms busy (in Nigerian English). The only time he shows up is to give instructions. I don’t know where people got that from, but it is terrible. That habit that makes you so inaccessible could make you lose best associates and even businesses. I am not saying open your doors to every Tom, Dick and Harry, I am saying don’t build a wall around yourself that eventually imprisons you.

7.     Micro-managing.

 I don’t know which ranks higher between this and distrust, but they sure are brothers. The reason people are given jobs is because you expect them to deliver on it, now let them do it and stop obstructing the flow. Every time a leader sticks his nose in the business of his subordinates, he tells the subordinates indirectly, “I don’t believe you can do this.” If you must know the details of everything, and by so doing, hamper the development of the subordinate, then maybe you should just do the job yourself. However, there are moments in the nurturing phases of mentoring and coaching that knowing details is non-negotiable, but as time goes on, encourage the subordinates’ use of initiative.

8.     Always seeing wrong, never appreciating progress.

 There are leaders that have eyes to pick subordinates’ errors in a split second, but whenever the subordinates did well, instead of praising the efforts, they still say something to make it sound like the subordinates should have being doing better by now. It is a herculean task trying to please such leaders. Every leader must learn to encourage and praise subordinates when they do well more than they rebuke them for doing poorly.

9.     Over-indulging certain people for the fear of losing them.

I agree that there are people in the workplace that are tough to replace because of their job skill, but if you have to always struggle at month-end to keep them because of their threat to leave your firm, then one of these three things or all is wrong: they either have attitude problem, are enticed by better offering, or, you simply are not up to your onions as a leader. Much as you should keep your best staff from being poached or losing them, you must not lose your respect as a leader. You must always make provision for replacement; it is part of your job to shop for better staff always just in case somebody wants to go. If you allow one to rubbish you, you open the door for others to do same to you.

10.                        The “use and dump” syndrome.

You probably understand the sound of that. You come into an organization, and for that moment, you are the toast, but as soon as someone else comes in, you are dumped or shall I say, your value drops and “you may go if you want”. Leaders need to beware of this attitude. The subordinates whom you keep dumping keep meeting themselves at the same desk and know exactly how you’ll treat the very next new entrant. With time, they will forewarn a new entrant, or just sit back and make a fool of you. Treat everyone in your organization as important. Never give your existing subordinates the impression that the new employee is better, remember you may still have to fall back on them. By the way, you don’t even know the new person well enough.