Rate how poor of a leader are you
In a classic working environment, people get a promotion when they are good at doing their jobs. Someone might be a good developer and excels with his or her technical skills, therefore, the management decided to promote them to take the lead for the development team. Or there’s senior designer that has worked in the company for almost 5 years and has dedicated almost everything to perfect their user interface and now is the time for them to step up and lead the young aspiring designers.
What the upper management failed to look at is that there is more to the job of leadership than just being good at their own craft or the length of their tenure. Reality check, being a good leader does not means having a profile that is flying in colors. (The Peter Principle)
Let’s re-evaluate your leadership skills and count how many 👎 you get in every entry listed below. Zero thumbs down means you’re not really doing what was described in the sentence and the more the thumbs down means the more you agree to it.
👎👎👎👎👎 You ask for too many meetings and let the team report one by one as to how were their tasks doing. You are nitpickingly asking them about their tasks and how did they end up consuming half the day in fixing a bug or changing the layout.
👎👎👎👎👎 It maybe a lunch break or a day off or your team member is out for a sick leave and you still want to get in touch to ask for an update about the report you asked from him or her.
👎👎👎👎👎 This is how I do things, so this is the way how your team should do it as well.
👎👎👎👎👎 You kind of raise an eyebrow if someone in your team is better than you. Since you’re the leader, you expect that you are the only one the best in doing what you’re doing.
👎👎👎👎👎 Someone made a mistake and you’re way too nice or afraid to offend if you reprimand him or her.
👎👎👎👎👎 You do not solicit your team’s opinions and decide things on your own. Whether it’s a new tech stack or UI design or growth hacks, you get to decide then just turn over the tasks for them to execute.
👎👎👎👎👎 You’re afraid to ask for help to your team members.
👎👎👎👎👎 Sometimes, your jokes are way over the line. It might be something personal or work related that is unnecessary or insensitive.
👎👎👎👎👎 There can also be times that you are focused on your tasks and failed to be a person that asks how they are doing. Someone might be having a bad day or feeling down, but you just don’t care as long as the job is done.
How many 👎 did you get? If you got 27 or above, you indeed need to re-evaluate what have you been doing as a leader and whether or not you are being effective.
Sure thing that leaders are the one that need to “lead” the team, but that does not include that you need to be too monitored in what your team had been doing. You have to trust them to do what they ought to do. Also, it will help if you treat your team as a family. You respect their time and privacy so that you can gain their trust in return. Note that it does not directly imply that if you’re the leader, you already gained their trust. That’s a whole different story.
Don’t be afraid to give them the spotlight and praise if they did a good job. It’s a motivating factor that can drive the team to continue to excel if that feel satisfied and fulfilled with the job that they are doing. It will also increase your team’s productivity if you are working together in a collaborative manner. So don’t be afraid to show them your lapses and ask for their opinions as well. Not only that it will help you with faster problem solving, it will also increase your team’s efficiency.
Lastly, do not be confused with just being a leader and being an effective leader.
