Critical Leadership Mistakes

Leadership is an art form; the same art as painting, music, or cinema. Even though some people are “born” leaders it is an attribute that can be learned, as people can learn to paint, to play piano, or to be an actor. However, to be a truly effective leader sometimes it is more important to know what not to do than what to do. And it is evident, since on the shoulders of leaders lays the responsibility not only for themselves, but for the whole team, and thus for team performance and final results. Moreover, leaders are capable not only to differentiate the results of their companies; they also can differentiate the satisfaction levels of the people working within these companies. It should be admitted that at one time or another everyone makes mistakes. However, depending on leaders’ attitude and approach these mistakes can be just temporary setbacks, or, in worst scenario -”career killers”. And, in this case, the great challenge is to admit making mistakes, as people can really learn from their mistakes and get valuable experience in ”the school of life”.

More than 1400 executives have told The Ken Blancard Companies what they think are the biggest, and most common, mistakes leaders make. The set of open-ended questions revealed Top5 critical leadership mistakes, where the first place goes to inappropriate use of communication, the second – to under or over-supervision, and the last three ”winners” are lack of management skills, lack of or inappropriate support, and lack of accountability. Moreover, it appears that nowadays leaders do not have even the most basic, critical leadership skills they need to do their job properly and this is bad news for business.…