People have bad habits. We all do. But when you develop these bad habits in business, then it means trouble. The success of your business will always depend on how good you are as a leader – on how you manage every strategy effectively and successfully. But let’s face it, not all of us are born naturally to lead. It takes a lot of your time and effort to learn the basic steps of leaderships, and on how you can effectively lead your fellow marketers to do business with you.
When it comes to marketing, even an SEO company knows so well that every second count. That means every leader should strive hard to compete in the marketing world. And having a lousy performance is unacceptable. Poor leadership would also mean ruining the team’s productivity. Of course, how will you lead your team when you yourself can’t even handle simple situations on your business? Right? A lot of you here might have been pondering if they are a good leader or not, or if they have been leading their business in the right direction or not?
Yes, leading your team may be daunting and challenging. But it doesn’t give you the reason why you can’t be a good leader to them. Well, if you want to help boost your business, then you should stop doing these bad leadership habits below that definitely, can ruin your team’s productivity.
1. Managing the details
Every detail of each strategy, no matter how simple it is, is important. Failure comes in when a leader missed out the details. And as the leader, you should not just look at the bigger picture, you should also know how to look at the smaller ones that help make or break a good strategy. For instance, setting up a goal where you want your employees to achieve, it is up to them on how they can make the task work. However, if that particular employee can’t deliver his/her task, then you probably have the wrong person for the job.
Managing the details means going micro to macro. Before going to a bigger strategy, make sure that the smaller details are efficient enough to support the said strategy as a whole. Likewise, you have to know the reasons as to why that particular employee is not effective in that particular task. Perhaps, he/she is expert and effective in other particular field and not on the task that you just gave. When you miss out even with that small detail, then that might be the reason why you can’t properly deliver your strategies.
2. Neglecting the individual
When it comes to business, you have to know that each employee is an expert in their respective field. Although they may not be good at some point, but there will always be something that they are good at. However, when you tend to give them a task that is not in line with their expertise, it may not be a good idea. Yes, multitasking may be an advantage to every business, but there will also be a downfall to it. Employees can’t focus on enhancing their skills when they have so many things to do, which may result in being stagnant on their specific field.
As a leader, you also have to know the strength of your employees– on which field are they good at. Of course, it is also not enough when you just know about their skills, you also have to understand the way they make things done. With this strategy, you will have a strong team working together while integrating their own expertise in the business as a whole. Moreover, this is also one way to lessen mistakes in delivering the given task they have.
3. Not making your expectations clear
Expecting something is definitely not a bad thing at all. In fact, it is in your expectation you can foresee things that may be possible to happen in your business. On the other hand, making an assumption is definitely a risk to take. Yes, there are just times that businesses should take some risk to avoid facing bigger damages. But as a leader, you also have to make sure that you are not taking a risk just for nothing that can jeopardize the quality of your business.
When you assume, it means you are not sure of the things that are going to happen. When it comes to business, there should always be an assurance in every transaction that you make before jumping into conclusions or decisions. You can’t take your business to the next level when you don’t expect it to grow. But when you expect, you will have a clearer view of what is going to happen, and what strategies to make for the next step.
4. Indecisiveness
When you can’t have a firm decision, then you are not fit to become a leader. Basically, a leader should have an authority over his words. In business, feeling pressured especially when it comes to the decision making is inevitable, considering that you can’t take an unnecessary risk for your business. And we all do understand that making a decision is a crucial thing to do. However, it doesn’t give you the reason to be indecisive on the things you should do for your business. If you do, then your business is going to be at risk.
Having a firm decision is a must for the betterment of your business. But if you can’t come up with a strong one, then your business might face troubles in the marketing industry. And you definitely don’t want to see that crappy outcome, right?
5. Refusing to delegate
The feeling is indeed wonderful when your employees looked up to you as a leader, and on how they respect you for achieving great things for the business. Yes, the feeling is great. But this is also one of the reasons why some leaders refuse to delegate tasks since all they want is to get the praises of their employees for accomplishing another great thing. And yes, this might be good at some point, but you are already killing the productivity of your team. What else would they do when you all have the task of yourself? And I’m sure you can’t do it all alone, you need someone to help you grow your business.
A good leader knows how to delegate tasks to his/her employees. It is also your duty to know which employee is good on a particular task. Avoid doing all the work by yourself. When you do, you might settle for mediocrity since you can’t finish your task on the given deadline. Moreover, if you want to see a growth of your business, you also have to make sure that your employees are also growing through integrating their field of expertise on your business. With that, it will be much easier for you to grow together as a team.
Being a leader is not just a simple task. You’re handling employees who are also one of the factors that contribute to the success of your business. If you are not careful enough in handling your team, this might have an undesirable result. That means you don’t just lead, you also have to set yourself a good example to your employees, which they might consider you as their inspiration to work harder for the betterment of the business.