16 Leadership Weaknesses and How to Turn Them into Strengths
16 Leadership Weaknesses and How to Turn Them into Strengths
Not all bosses born with the qualities that make a great leader; in fact, some are so terrible at leading that their professional skills are called into question. Who know who we’re talking about: the manager you’re constantly trying to avoid, hurrying out of the kitchen once they walk in, keeping your head down and avoiding any form of eye contact!
If you’re a manager reading this and are thinking ‘that sounds familiar’, I’m afraid your not-so-popular management style has led you to be a bad boss.
So how do you go about changing this?
Well, you first need to identify your weaknesses, and this little list will give you examples of where you are going wrong and how you can fix things.
1. Micromanaging
Do you feel the need to check in on your team members five times a day to make sure they’ve completed every minuscule task you’ve given them?
By constantly breathing down your team’s neck, you’re eventually going to rub them up the wrong way. Remember: you hired them because they have the skills to do the job, so give them some space and a little trust and let them get on with their work without disruption. This doesn’t mean you need to be completely hands-off but rather that you find the right balance that works well for your department.
2. Not Having Integrity
As a leader, you’re a role model for the rest of the company, and your employees look to you as an example of how they should behave. So if you have strong principles and are always honest, your team will feel compelled to follow suit.
If not, expect a dishonest and broken department. After all, integrity is the most valuable and respected quality of leadership – always keep your word.
3. Not Being Adaptable
Great leaders know how to be flexible and make decisions based on the difficult circumstances they are faced with; they can think on their feet and find solutions to problems. On the other hand, weak leaders cannot embrace new ideas and are very much ‘stuck in their ways’, unwilling to adapt to what the situations call for.
Moving forward, to become a better leader, you’ll need to embrace changes and think outside of the box when it comes to solving problems in a fast-paced environment.
4. Not Providing Feedback
Poor leaders lack the skill to provide constructive feedback; they notice that there is a small issue with one of their team members but don’t point out where they are going wrong. If you aren’t advising your employees of their mistakes and giving them tips on how they can improve, they will continue to make errors and still be none the wiser.
In a poll of 1,400 executives, meanwhile, The Ken Blanchard Companies found that failing to provide feedback was the most common mistake leaders make. Another fatal error was postponing or failing to remember to follow through with reviews and appraisals, meaning that they aren’t giving their employees that little boost of confidence or praise they need to improve and do better.
5. Not Having a Vision for the Future
A true leader is always thinking of ways to improve their product or service and gain even greater results. They are constantly coming up with new and innovative ideas to progress. Weak leaders, on the other hand, are happy with their status quo and lack the enthusiasm to develop and do better.
6. Not Being Accountable
As a leader, you are responsible for your team, and a
As the saying goes: ‘a pupil is only as good as their teacher’.
If your employees have made a mistake, chances are you haven’t given the correct information or support to perform the job properly. Not being able to admit this and take the blame is a bad trait, and one that a manager shouldn’t possess. However hard it may be to swallow your pride, you need to stand up and take the blame; after all, nobody is perfect.
7. Not Defining Goals
If you fail to give your team a clear objective of what they should be aiming towards, they’ll be aimlessly filling their day with menial tasks in order to get by. As a boss, you need to give them clear goals of what they should be doing and how they can prioritise their work effectively, ensuring that all their projects are completed in time.
8. Being Unrealistic
Some leaders have unrealistic expectations in the workplace; a good example of this is giving a valuable team member too many tasks with short deadlines. With the added pressure, the employee will either crumble or be discouraged and will begin looking for employment elsewhere.
In other words, it’s important that you understand the reality of the work you are delegating and to ensure that you give your team your full support.
9. Being Closed-Minded
As a manager, your responsibilities are to clearly outline what your staff need to do and when they need to do it by so they know what is expected of them. You need to be able to give them instructions and teach them the process of how to complete these tasks efficiently.
Let’s say, one day, Jennifer comes along with a great concept of how to work on the same job, but with a different method – but you insistently shoot her down. This kind of closed-mindedness will not get you far within the workplace – you need to learn to accept new ideas and praise employees that use their initiative to better the whole working process.
10. Being Insecure
Do your palms sweat every time you need to give bad feedback? Does your voice go shaky when you need to speak in a board meeting?
If you’re shyly nodding your head, you have a characteristic of a bad leader. You can change this by learning to believe in yourself and becoming more self-confident. You were given your position as a leader because your supervisor believed in your skills, so be confident about the decisions you make and try to portray this when you are in an uncomfortable situation.
11. Making Empty Promises
One of the biggest things that rub employees up the wrong way is when they are constantly given empty promises. For example, you tell employees that they’ll get a bonus if they hit the quarterly targets, but when they do achieve those results, the bonus doesn’t actually come through.
If you’re making promises to your team without any approval from the higher-ups, you’re simply pushing them further away and this will eventually make them so angry that they’ll start looking for employment elsewhere. The moral of the story here is to make sure you always have confirmation before you deliver important news to your employees.
12. Valuing Experience over Potential
There are a handful of bosses who only take people’s experience into consideration rather than the potential another employee possesses.
Some of your best employees are probably not the most experienced but are keen and fast learners, and have a fire in their belly to deliver the best possible performance. Don’t fail to give someone the chance to prove themselves just because they don’t have the specific skill on their CV.
13. Showing Favouritism
There’s bound to be one person on your team that outshines the rest, but showing them favouritismis going to get you in big trouble.
For example, if you’re telling off Emma for being two minutes late but Jane gets off the hook because you like her a little more, you’re only going to cause a divide in your team and maybe even a complaint against you. Be sure to treat everyone as equal, especially if you’re handling a small team.
14. Having Tunnel Vision
With ever-evolving trends and procedures, leaders need to be able to change with the times. What’s suitable today may not be suitable tomorrow, and you have to adapt to that. If you’re stuck in your ways and follow the motto that ‘if it’s not broken, don’t fix it’, you’ll soon find yourself on your own, simply because you didn’t change your business strategy.
15. Taking Credit for Success
Do you take all the credit for success, even if you weren’t the person to actually come up with the idea? Well, you need to make your team look good, too – remember to give credit where credit is due.
As Nick Friedman from College Hunks Hauling Junk says: ‘In order to be a true visionary leader, you need to let go of your ego and focus on your people because without them you would be nowhere.’
16. Not Having Empathy
A good leader has the ability to understand the problems that their team or employee faces and has the skills to assist with their problem and be empathetic. If your staff is scared to talk to you about any issues they are dealing with, you most likely lack understanding. A good idea would be to hold a team meeting and open the question so your workers can tell you if they have any issues within the workplace.
What other weaknesses do you think some leaders possess? Join the conversation down below and let us know!
source : www.careeraddict.com