I’ve had so many people ask me advice on how to manage their teams and honestly, there have been a number of times I really want to say to them:
Leading means running fast enough to keep ahead of your people.
(S.M. Stirling)
And if they don’t get what I mean, then I’d know we were in trouble.
The reality is that we all may go through phases of being a bad leader. It could be because the challenge the team is facing isn’t our cup of tea, or maybe we’re just going through a bad phase in life. It’s okay to sometimes be a bad leader – so long as you realize what’s going on. During these phases, you must not point fingers at your team mates, the organization or the leadership. Instead, accept that you have a personal challenge to overcome.
There are 4 signs that indicate that you need to work on your leadership skills:
• People stay for money
• They confide in other leaders
• You feel like you’re not heard
• You feel threatened
You’ll notice that the first two reflect how team members are acting whereas points 3 and 4 show how you feel because of these actions. To recognize that you need to improve as a leader you’ll see the signs in others and yourself.
1. People Are Staying For Money Only
It’s the first sign. When you feel like you need to increase people’s salary to get them to stay with the company. There’s still great truth in the belief that money is the least important motivator when it comes to retaining employees. If you’re able to engage them, challenged them and make their efforts feel valued, money is going to be the last thing on everyone’s mind. Of course that doesn’t mean you can underpay them – doing that shows you don’t value their input. But, it should never become a salary bidding war where employees are challenging you to increase their pay because of other “opportunities”.
2. People Confide Their Problems to Other Leaders
Have you ever been in a situation where you find out something about a team member from another team lead? Do you wonder why they went to another leader rather than come to you? Well it’s usually a pretty straight forward answer: Either they don’t respect you as a leader or they feel threatened with the information they need to share.
Read the rest here: http://paulkeijzer.com/4-signs-that-youre-a-bad-leader/
Go, Leader, Grow! 