by Alice Alessandri and Alberto Aleo.
Do you consider yourself a true leader because your team follows your instructions, and when working in a group, you know how to force your opinions through? Watch out! You might be confusing leadership with wielding authority, which are two very different things, and you could be making one of the ten mistakes we’ll analyze in this article.
Leadership as a service.
Throughout this blog, we’ve emphasized this point repeatedly, and we’ve even dedicating an entire section to leadership: being a true leader means serving your team, not the other way around. This means that to effectively guide and coordinate, you need to have developed specific human skills such as empathy, listening, openness, and an awareness of diversity, among others, through careful self-reflection. If you neglect these aspects, here’s what might happen!
1. Treating everyone the same way.
Let’s debunk the myth of equality in favor of the paradigm of equity, i.e., providing each person with what they need according to their uniqueness and requirements. A leader is supposed to understand what each team member needs at a given moment, considering their professional and personal growth, age, experience, and what happened in their life.
Employees are people, and they come to work with every aspect of their identity. We cannot expect them to compartmentalise their personality in their professional life.
Learning 1
Help each individual express their unique talents.
Photo by Quinton Coetzee on Unsplash
2. Hindering or preventing growth.
A team thrives when each member evolves and contributes. An insecure leader might stifle the growth of team members to avoid being outshined and to maintain control for longer. Helping people grow means allowing them to develop skills, showcase their capabilities, actively contribute, and become as independent in their career as they deserve to be.
If you’re thinking, “But what if, after I invest resources in their growth, they decide to leave?” consider whether you’d prefer to have unskilled employees or accept the risk of losing capable ones. Create engaging opportunities that make the best team members want to stay.
Learning 2
Develop a growth plan for each team member and nurture the leaders of tomorrow.
3. Not speaking with your team.
A leader’s workday should include time dedicated to their team. Listening, solving problems, sharing goals, explaining, and motivating are just a few of the essential actions which can all be distilled into one word: dialogue.
Don’t assume others know what’s on your mind, and remember that one of the hardest things for an employee is not knowing why they have to perform certain tasks. Engaging in dialogue doesn’t mean being overwhelmed by your team or taking on responsibilities that aren’t yours. Instead, it’s about carefully investing in human capital with care and time.
Learning 3
Dedicate a little quality time to each team member every week.
4. Providing destructive criticism.
On your employees’ path towards professional growth, we must accept that there will be mistakes, and things won’t always go as expected. Collective reflection and analysis of inappropriate behaviors should become standard practice. Criticism is constructive when it helps the person understand causes and consequences and encourages improvement. It becomes destructive if it is accusatory (“You’re incompetent”), if delivered in front of other colleagues, uses sarcasm inappropriately, or addresses too many issues all at once.
Learning 4
Allow everyone to correct their own mistakes and improve.
5. Forgetting to praise.
When tasks are completed successfully and on time, do you remember to celebrate these achievements? When someone overcomes a problem that had previously triggered criticism, do you acknowledge and appreciate it?
Many leaders assume that when things go well, employees have simply done their job. What makes us fair leaders isn’t just pointing out areas that need improvement, but also recognizing and showcasing what works. This practice motivates the team and ensures that everyone feels acknowledged in every aspect.
Learning 5
Celebrate achievements and show gratitude:
joy is enhanced through sharing.
6. Wanting everything immediately
Time plays a crucial role in leadership. First and foremost, we need to give employees the time to grow. No evolution happens instantly, and forcing the process is usually counterproductive.
When we ask for something to be done without realising how long it actually takes or when we label everything as “urgent,” saying things like “I need this yesterday,” we are not respecting the value of other people’s time. Being late to meetings or cancelling them at the last minute also damages internal team relationships.
Learning 6
Be mindful of how you make use of your time and that of others.
7. Resisting change by saying, “We’ve always done it this way!”
Similarly to life itself, organizations evolve, and one of the worst mistakes a leader can make is not allowing innovative ideas from team members to be expressed. While experience helps us make informed choices and replicate successful strategies, we must also have an open approach to innovations that can enhance our business and its activities. Carrying out regular creative meetings, seeking team feedback, and accepting fresh ideas, especially from newer members, while reminding everyone of the main targets encourages growth, fosters engagement, and often leads to better outcomes.
Learning 7
Embrace evolution by stepping out of your comfort zone now and then.
8. Not practicing what you preach.
We’ve all been children and have experienced the confusion of seeing the inconsistencies between our parents’ actions and how they expected us to behave. Leaders often expect their teams to have attitudes that they themselves do not uphold. Remember, each of your actions is under scrutiny, and employees learn more from what you do than from what you say. If you set rules and procedures to encourage best practices, you must be the first to follow them. Your leadership status does allow you to define company policies but doesn’t exempt you from following them. We must earn respect and trust from our team by setting a good example, which shows we are taking direct responsibility for the team.
Learning 8
Live by your own rules.
9. Pounding your fists and shouting.
In a single workday, we can face both successes and challenges. Dealing with what isn’t working is what leaders are for. The worst thing we can do is to respond with aggression, which creates a culture of fear where employees start hiding vital information to avoid retribution. This lack of trust is divisive and stifles creativity.
An ethical leader works on assertiveness, expressing their thoughts calmly and confidently while allowing others to do the same. Constructive criticism and open dialogue help prevent problems and set realistic goals for the team.
Learning 9
Don’t confuse authority with leadership: serve your employees, and they will support you in return.
10. Justifying means to achieve goals.
We live in a cynical and competitive society that often wants leaders to focus on results above all else. It’s a world where quantity (the number of hours worked, the amount of effort, or simply the turnover) is considered a sign of quality, and people and resources get exploited in the process to increase dry performance indicators.
However, leadership is shifting toward a more human-centered approach, emphasizing soft skills, personal values, and inclusive workplace cultures.
A leader is no longer a mythical demigod with superhuman performance but a relatable hero who, despite their vulnerabilities, serves a greater good. This authenticity makes them more engaging and inspiring to those they lead.
Learning 10
Preserve your integrity and your humanity. Bravely choose to be yourself
and to put your values into practice.
Being a leader is a constant commitment that will pay off not only professionally, rewarding you with prestige that no organizational chart can give you, but also by allowing you to experience a wide range of emotions and connections that will unlock both your talents and those of your team.
| partem claram semper aspice |
The photos used - where not owned by the editorial team or our guests - are purchased on Adobe Stock and IStockPhoto or downloaded from platforms such as UnSplash or Pexels.
Did you like this post and want to learn more about the topics?
Passodue research on issues related to sales, marketing, ethics and the centrality of human beings within the market logic, officially started in 2012. The results derived from our work are described in the publications and in the books you can find in this section.
Click below to find out Passodue's books.
You're probably interested also in...
This Post Has 0 Comments