Leadership behaviours ? Something we all strive to develop. As a leader, you’re probably always trying to build your skills. That’s admirable, but it’s also missing a fundamental rule of transformative leadership.
That is, leadership growth is often more about stopping doing certain things than it is about doing new things.
Our leadership habits are often deeply ingrained- learnt from our past managers and experience on the job (often making it up as we go along). Over time, we amass quite a lot of problematic leadership behaviours, which must be stopped if you want to run a team which is happy, productive, and engaged.
Stop needing to win all the time.
Winning on the big things is important. But is having your way ALL the time really what your team wants or needs from you? Good leadership requires that you let those around you enjoy some wins too, or you’ll soon get a reputation as an authoritarian leader who wants to hold all the cards and claim all the glory.
How to proceed: When you’re finding yourself in a discussion where you’re really hammering your point of view home against a dissenting voice, ask yourself: how does this issue feed into the bigger picture? Will it matter to our long term strategy? Will it matter next week? Does it really matter now?
IIs it worth upsetting a team member over this relatively minor matter, and maybe losing their productivity for the rest of the day— or their loyalty for even longer? You must learn to recognise when a personal win is actually a loss in other, more important ways.
Stop playing favourites.
Favouritism is one of the most ‘corrosive’ leadership behaviours, causing deep divisions and resentment in your team. It’s quite normal to like some people more than others, particularly when that person’s work is important to the team, or you share a natural affinity.
Yet a crucial part of your job as a leader is learning how to treat everyone the same from a leadership perspective- even if your interior views are wildly different.
Sure, have incentive programs that reward your star players, but make them fair, clearly outlined and eminently measurable, so that everyone (even that person that sets your teeth on edge) would be rewarded in the same way were they to reach that target.
Moving forward: Take a moment to consider every member of your team- do you favour them (or not) because they’re a good worker, because they like you, or because they’re like you? If you’re like most leaders, you’ll actually accord a lot more weight to the second two than you realise. Start noticing your tendency to favour people and rectify it.
Don’t let your status blind you to the harsh reality.
As a boss, you’ll find that you’re often soon surrounded by ‘yes-men’ and women. Everyone accords weight to what you say, and laughs at your jokes. It takes a cool head to always remember that some (and possibly a good deal) of this respect is for your title, rather than your ideas, personality or leadership ability. Ouch!
Moving forward: Encourage feedback and objections to your plans, and surround yourself with people who know more than you do so that you continue to learn. Richard Branson swears by this method, and he’s done alright for himself.
Stop pouring your valuable time into small things.
If you’re blindly fixated on shovelling coal into the burner, who on earth is driving the train? A leader cannot let themselves be endlessly drawn into the minutiae, but must instead concentrate on the big picture.
Moving forward: Schedule a regular, unbreakable time to concentrate on big picture-planning and progress.
Address the big issues first.
This goes both for your daily schedule and for meetings with your team. Most people will be much fresher at the start of a day/meeting than at the end, and getting the big issues dealt with early creates momentum to power through the rest of the tasks at hand.
Moving forward: Stop leaving the important, high cognitive tasks until later, as that’s a sure-fire way of them getting pushed over onto tomorrow’s to-do list.
Stop obstructing the team’s path to success.
If there are any unnecessary rules, unclear expectations, overly-long meetings, or inefficient work systems or software, then your employees are being obstructed. If you’re micromanaging or too hands-off, you’re also obstructing.
Moving forward: Get your team’s feedback on how you can cut out inefficiencies and provide the right level of support and visibility.
Stop letting things slide in the hope of being liked.
If you’re not addressing poor performance or a bad attitude when you see it, you’re not being a good leader. Employees may like you personally for your soft approach, but they won’t respect you unless you’re clear and decisive in your feedback and judgement calls. Also, if your desire to be liked or fear in facing conflict is stopping you from letting a poor performer go, then resentment will inevitably build towards you.
Moving forward: Speak your mind, and don’t sugar-coat things. If there’s rot in the team, it is your obligation to cut it out, or you’ll be letting everyone down- from the CEO right through to the newest intern. Are you really being kind and likeable if that’s the case?
Stop taking lots of risks.
You might want to be known as Avant Garde and innovative, by giving every idea that comes across your desk a go. That will buoy morale initially, but before long, the team start feeling they’re working amidst a cyclone where things change day to day.
Moving forward: Aim for stability with a considered level of innovation and risk.
Becoming a great leader requires that you examine your existing patterns and eliminate those that are not serving your team. How many of these are you guilty of, and which ones will you stop doing today?
Until next time,
Julia
