No one sets out to do a bad job as a leader. After all it has probably taken you years of hard work and personal sacrifice to achieve a leadership role. Sadly for many the excitement of achieving a leadership role is often short lived. So what are 4 key contributors to leadership failure that you need to be looking out for?
Contributor 1: Unable to Adapt
Organizations are forever going through change. Think about the organizations that you have worked for over your career to date. How many of them are exactly the same as when you worked there? Being able to adapt to never ending changing circumstances is a key element in a successful leadership career. How do you stack up on this aspect?
Contributor 2: Unwilling to act on feedback
Feedback is often an area that people struggle with. Sure we all love to hear about all the great things we are doing. At the same time fewer of us are as comfortable hearing about what we are not doing so well. If you are serious about leadership you need to be willing to receive and act on feedback positive and not so positive.
Contributor 3: Unable to listen
Listening is a form of communication but unlike writing and speaking it is often an area where people have received no training. Being an effective listener requires you to really focus and pay attention to the points that are being made rather than always preparing the next thing you are going to say.
Contributor 4: Being critical of others
Being critical of others is easy. Yet in truth it rarely achieves anything other than to distance people even further away from you. If you want to succeed as a leader you need to be able to give constructive feedback without alienating others.
Bottom Line – There are no guarantees when it comes to leadership success, yet at the same time there may be some things that you are doing that are setting you up only for failure.
