Being a leader is one of the best things of one’s life. It makes you feel like you can do almost anything, and people look up to you for advice and assurance. However, not everyone is a natural-born leader. Plus, even the best leaders can make leadership mistakes sometimes. This is especially true for those who run businesses. No one is perfect.
But the good news is, there are ways to be a better leader. In these ways, you’re less likely to fall for the same leadership mistakes over and over again. With that said, here are 8 of the most common leadership mistakes that all leaders should avoid when it comes to running a business:
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Not Reserving Time For Your Staff
“Your staff are the heart of your business,” says Edgar Swan, a leadership blogger at Best essay writing service and Studydemic. “Therefore, as a leader or manager, you’ll need to make time to get to know your staff. Don’t ever treat them like commodities. Otherwise, they won’t be motivated to keep working in their respective roles. Instead, be a good listener to your staff. Be an ally. And, ensure that your team always come first.”
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Not Finding A Focus
There has to be a good focus, or a mission, that your business must care about. What is the one thing that you hope to accomplish with your business?
This should also be a priority for your team. All team members, including the leader, must know what you hope to accomplish. Therefore, it’s important to find a focus – find something that the business should be working towards. If you need to set some goals, do so. (We’ll discuss goat setting later on in this post.)
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Zero Feedback
Feedback is one of the most important things to have in your business. Without feedback from your team members, or if you yourself don’t give feedback to the team, your company will make unintended mistakes during production and projects. As you can see, the lack of communication shouldn’t be the norm in your business. Therefore, be sure to allow feedback from your team members. In turn, ensure that you yourself are giving feedback to your team, so that everyone is on the same page when it comes to upcoming projects and events.
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Not Set Goals
As mentioned earlier, you’ll need to set some goals for your business. Without any goals in place, your team won’t know what they’re doing, or how to proceed with their roles. Or, not establishing the right goals can run your team the risk of miscommunication, wasted time, and wasted resources.
So, when you make it a point to set the right goals, you and your team will know what to do during the planning and production stages of your business.
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No Adequate Motivation
Team members will look to you for decision making, planning, and coordination. Without any motivation, your staff will doubt if their jobs are even worth doing.
That’s why it’s important for you to be the driving force, when it comes to running your business. Give your team solid reasons why they should keep doing their work. Don’t just tell them that it’s for the money. Think of other motivative things like:
- Career growth
- Community (member-to-member, employee-to-customer, etc.)
- Collaborations, etc.
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Not Knowing Your Role
Being a leader is more than just leading a team. In fact, being a leader means to:
- Be the driving force of your business.
- Be the voice of reason when times are tough.
- Help in any way that you can. AND,
- Be a good listener to those who need it.
Keep in mind these traits, and you’ll perform better as a leader of a team.
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Rushing Recruitment
“The last thing you want is to hire the wrong people onto your team,” says Arthur Gates, a writer at Assignment service and Top essay writing services. “Just because there is much work to be done in your business, doesn’t mean that you should go out and hire just anybody. Instead, be smart with recruiting by looking for desired job traits, skills, and experience. In that case, it’s okay to be picky about who you hire, because you want to hire the best of the best in your industry.”
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Excessive Friendliness
Finally, while being friendly is nice, you can’t be too friendly. In fact, too much leniency can result from being too friendly with your team.
Therefore, practice professionalism when it comes to important projects, collaborations, and events. That doesn’t mean that you can’t socialize with your team members during off-hours. By having a time and a place for socializing, and having a time and place for professionalism, you’ll have a good balance of work and life.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many mistakes to be made when you’re a leader of a team. However, by avoiding these 8 common leadership mistakes, you’ll not only be a great part of your business, but also, your team members will thank you for it.
Good luck in your leadership endeavors!
Guest contribution by Madeline Miller
Madeline Miller is a writer at Best legit essay writing services and Student Writing Services. She is also a contributing writer at Academadvisor. As a content writer, she writes articles about workplace etiquette, tech trends, and business trends.
