Many Leaders Routinely Make These 4 Mistakes – Do You?
This article comes from Entrepreneur.
Many Leaders Routinely Make These 4 Mistakes – Do You?
As a leader, don’t have complete control. That being said, there are certain things you can do, and mistakes you can avoid, to position yourself and your company for success.
1. Taking on too much
As stated in a blog post written by Mark Moses, founding partner of CEO Coaching International, too many CEOs take on more than they can handle. “Setting restrictions on what you will and won’t do might sound indulgent or lazy…trust me, it’s not,” says Moses.
“You’re just stuck in a start-up mentality. If you don’t stop thinking like someone running a business out of his or her garage and start thinking like a world-class CEO, your company will never be world class.”
2. Forgetting to listen
According to a study conducted by the Miles Group and Stanford Graduate School, CEOs typically rate low in people management — especially when it comes to skills like listening. Although this issue is difficult to overcome, you can improve immensely by using what the Oxford Library of Psychology terms “the science of compassion” in your workplace.
David Desteno, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, said in a recent article for Harvard Business Review, “People made to feel pride and compassion are willing to persevere more than 30 percent longer on challenging tasks compared to those feeling other positive emotions, such as happiness, precisely because pride and compassion induce them to place greater value on future rewards.”
To put this managerial style into action, you have to start listening to your employees. Learn by speaking with them and their managers what they like and dislike about their jobs. Then, see how you can minimize their suffering and maximize the rewards they experience from working for your company.
3. Giving up too early
Barnes & Noble knew it was in for a fight as Amazon rose to power. At first, the bookseller came out strong, adding coffee shops to their bookstores to incentivize customer visits. And they went as far as creating an e-reader of their own to compete with the Amazon Kindle.
Despite these big changes, Amazon continued to thrive and at that point, Barnes & Noble pretty much gave up. The bookstore could have done more, but leadership either didn’t have the stamina or the ideas to try new tactics. Now, Amazon book sales continue to dominate the market.
4. Failing to set boundaries
There’s a lot of buzz surrounding flexible organizational structures these days.
As the business landscape changes, many of the facets of the fixed organization fall — hierarchy, function, etc. Although organization structures are changing, boundaries need to stay in place. As a CEO, you need to implement rules that will help your diverse team function on a high level, both with you and with one another.
In an interview with Forbes’ Dan Schawbel, Dr. Henry Cloud, a clinical psychologist who’ made a career of advising CEOs, claims that leaders need to set several types of boundaries.
There’s always room for growth as a leader.
Being a CEO is difficult, and mistakes are bound to happen. Luckily, with the right knowledge, you’ll be able to identify and avoid common managerial mistakes before they inflict damage to your reputation and bottom line.
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