With twenty years of experience leading corporate professionals and thousands of hours coaching and training emerging leaders, I’ve uncovered the three most common problems about how people view good and bad leadership.
Most people in management want to be outstanding leaders. However, it’s time to face reality about some common mistakes leaders at all levels make and how to fix or avoid them altogether.
Here are the top 3 most common complaints:
- Ignoring or rescheduling one-on-one meetings: It’s difficult to comprehend something so basic could be the number one complaint among team members, but it’s reality. They tell me they despise it when their leader does not spend dedicated time with them, cancels or reschedules meetings frequently. It saddens me when I hear this because this is not a difficult problem to solve, yet it’s a chronic issue.
Human beings want to share opinions, create value, and earn recognition. The one-on-one meeting is a fundamental component of a positive leadership style. To ignore this time sends multiple messages to the team member such as, “I’m not important,” “my opinions do not matter,” and “the boss does not care about me.” The leader loses trust, credibility, engagement, and even performance. The leader who sets up dedicated time with their team members but cancels or reschedules routinely equally damages the working relationship. When a leader adjusts a set meeting to address a higher priority, it also sends the wrong message to team members. They feel “I’m not as important,” “my time is not valuable; therefore, I am not valued,” and “the boss does not care about me.” Zig Ziglar said, “No one cares what you have to say unless they know you care.”
I understand crazy schedules challenging us to maintain consistent meetings with our teams. And to be clear, I’m not talking about rare occasions like an unexpected board meeting or family emergency. These events happen, and people extend grace for those rare occasions when their leader builds trust and confidence in advance. If a leader’s schedule is out of control, it’s necessary to evaluate time management skills. I’ve met leaders at all levels who still believe setting and holding consistent one-on-one meetings is not essential even after educating them. Their team members suffer and become disengaged or leave the company. I’ve developed proven techniques on how to design and stick to a successful team communication plan to help those struggling in this area. - Unclear strategy and goals: Leadership requires an established plan and ability to articulate how the team gets to the finish line. Without a clear, well-defined strategy with goals and an execution plan, a team cannot succeed. I believe this skill set is the differentiator between good leadership and outstanding leadership. Each department head must align with the company vision in terms of its unique objectives and accomplish the goals that drive the overall strategy. Too often, I observe teams floundering because they lack clarity about project priorities and goals. When this occurs, people lose interest, disengage, and become complacent or leave. Leaders who lack or struggle with this skill set must gain the knowledge of how to design strategies, set SMART goals, and understand how to communicate the plan to drive effective execution.
- Delegating too little or too much: Empowerment is the root of this complaint. “Empower your team” became an overused buzzword, and many leaders still struggle to deliver. Top executives make demands yet also fall short, educating their leaders on what empowering others looks like. Some leaders take a hands-off approach, leaving their team members floundering with no direction or job training because they don’t understand the basics of true empowerment. Others take the opposite approach, choking out empowerment by hoarding tasks vs. delegating appropriate tasks to the team. Worse yet, they continue to micro-manage workers, stifling the strength of empowerment altogether. Delegation is a balance of entrusting others to do their job while supporting them with the right measure of training, guidance, feedback, and course correcting.
The foundational theme among the 3 most common pitfalls of leaders is communication. If a person holds a management level position and not willing to communicate or learn effective communication practices, they cannot define themselves as a leader. It’s an oxymoron to claim such a critical title under those conditions. Genuine leaders, lead. They never hesitate to initiate meetings or collaborations to discuss strategies and challenges with their team members.
The bottom line is genuine leaders, care. If we can only choose one attribute that stands high above all other leadership attributes, it’s care. We can train excellent communication skills, strategy, execution, etc. But we cannot train a leader to care. The most important attribute must come from a leader’s heart.
Teresa Devine is a leadership expert, Christian Spiritual Growth Coach, and writer in the Atlanta area. Her work has been featured on fmr. Oprah’s Angel Network and Cisco.com. A former Chief Information Officer for a Fortune 500 Company, she remains a CIO advisor to private equity firms in New York City, London, and Chicago. Sign up here for her FREE Spiritual Gifts Assessment & trainings.