One of the best leadership qualities that a manager can have is the ability to build up self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-respect in others. As a leader, your choices affect your entire team, especially your leadership mistakes.
However, we’ve all had bad bosses who do just the opposite. Today, I am going to identify 3 of the biggest leadership mistakes people make and provide some solutions.
Perhaps some of you have made some of these leadership mistakes in the past. The good news is, we can all learn what makes a good leader by taking a look at these missteps and correcting them.
By focusing on building self-esteem, you can help your team reach peak performance.
Each person has unlimited potential and can flourish in the right environment once that potential is tapped into. They have huge reservoirs of creativity that can be unleashed to solve problems, overcome obstacles and achieve business goals.
This includes you!
Raise Your Team’s Self-Esteem
The leader is the most important person in any organization.
The leader sets the tone by the way he talks, behaves, responds to others and treats people on a day to day basis.
People tend to “follow the leader” in that they imitate or mimic the behavior of the leader toward others. When you lead by example and treat other people with courtesy and respect, the rest of the group will follow.
A kind word from you to one of your staff members can make them feel happy all day. An angry word can make them feel frustrated, afraid and insecure for the rest of the day. You must be careful.
There are specific behaviors that you can practice each day in any interaction to raise your team’s self-esteem.
When you deliberately take the time to build self-esteem in other people, you simultaneously eliminate the fears that hold people back from doing their best. A peak performance work environment, like flowers in the spring, blooms naturally around you.
Three Leadership Mistakes People Make
They Criticize Others
The first leadership mistake that managers make is that they criticize others.
Refuse to criticize anyone for any reason. When people make mistakes, you focus on the solution. Focus on what can be done rather than who did it and who is to blame.
This is the mark of the superior leader with admirable leadership questions
We all know that destructive criticism is harmful. Personally, we all hate to be the recipients of destructive criticism. It can make us angry for days, and even years.
Destructive criticism attacks our self-esteem, hurts our self-image and hinders us from reaching peak performance. It makes us angry and defensive.
If it is so hateful to us, why would we ever do it to someone else?
They Complain
The second leadership mistake people make is that they complain for any reason.
Complainers are always looking for something or someone to complain about.
They tend to associate with other complainers. They talk together at work and socialize after work. They go out for lunch and coffee breaks together.
Complaining becomes a natural way of life for them.
But there is a major problem with both criticizing and complaining. In both situations, you are positioning yourself as a victim. When you complain you actually weaken yourself.
You feel inferior and inadequate. You feel angry and resentful. You feel negative and unsure. Your level of self-esteem and self-respect will decline as you complain about anything to someone else.
If you are not happy about something, as the manager, you are entitled to bring it to the attention of the other person.
You are responsible for putting it on the table and discussing it. These are admirable leadership qualities that you must learn to develop.
If you are not happy with a behavior or an outcome, your job is to actively intervene to correct the situation. You can do this by being objective about the difference between what you expected and what has actually happened.
You then invite input on how you and the other person or persons can solve the problem or improve the situation. But you never complain.
They Condemn Others On Their Team
The third leadership mistake people make is condemning anyone for any reason, inside or outside of your company.
When you condemn other people, you demoralize the listener, and the self-esteem of the other person will be severely lowered.
When you condemn people outside the company, someone will eventually tell them what you have said. Usually, a distorted version is told and will come back to haunt you.
This seems to be a law of nature, and completely unavoidable.
These recommendations are equally as important when you are talking about competitors or customers in the marketplace. Never criticize your competitors.
Admire them if they are more successful in some areas than you are. Then, look for ways to produce even better products and services, and sell them even more effectively.
Never complain about people and problems outside your business. Instead, use that same amount of mental energy to find solutions. Resolve the problems that led to the complaints in the first place.
The Best Leaders Create A Positive Environment
When you develop positive leadership qualities, your general attitude diffuses a warm light and fills the entire workplace.
You create an environment where people are relaxed and feel good about themselves and their work. You will raise the self-esteem of everyone in the workplace.
