I am a relatively new leader of people, at least in the formal reporting relationship sense. I have read books on leadership, but yesterday was my first training class on the subject. I’ve always considered myself to be decent at leading and working with people. I know how to get stuff done with a group of people and I’m pretty good at developing relationships. But in the first 10 minutes of my class I realized that I’m not that great of a leader and that I’m doing a lot of things wrong. It was eye opening to say the least and I had a moment of sadness and empathy for the people I am responsible for leading. In a list of about 40 things that leaders should not do, I probably do about half of them. Suddenly I was conscious of my incompetence and I knew that the things I see as issues in my team, are really a reflection of me and it’s my responsibility to correct it.
Here are my top offenses:
- Being too lax
- Tolerating poor performance
- Failure to set clear performance goals
- Failure to inspect what I expect
- Failure to develop people
- Failing to give recognition
- Not listening
Ugly, yes. Now I’m faced with a choice. Change or ignore. I’m motivated to change and so the hard work begins