Paul Keijzer — October 30, 2017 — October 30, 2017
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Being a leader requires you to transform and mold yourself into a superhuman who’s gunning for success and growth. Your journey will see you take risks, drive extremely hard, make bold decisions, make mistakes and fail, learn from your mistakes and failures and do it all over again. It’s a relentless journey. Perseverance is your best quality. Staying focused your best course of action. Along this journey you’ll learn and pick up good habits and traits that’ll complement your leadership style. However, you’ll also be fueling and harboring some critically bad habits that, honestly, you’re better off without.
There are times we’re not aware that we’re indulging in these habits. It’s only natural since we’re working so hard on fulfilling our passion and ambitions. However, most great leaders spend time reflecting on what they’ve achieved so far and assessing what corrective measures to take. And just like them, you too should be self-aware and constantly on the hunt to be an even better leader. Whether you’re a new leader or have been one for many years, here are a few critical habits that you should let go of to be an effective leader.
Managing Performance
Micromanaging is probably one of the biggest sins a leader can commit. It’s demoralizing and discouraging for your team. It takes up too much of your creative time and wastes your talent and abilities. Basically, micromanaging is a disease you need to rid yourself off. However, it’s not just about delegating more. There’s a bigger purpose to achieve when you decide you’re finally going to let go of managing performance. And that’s to empower and trust your employees and focus on results rather than daily activities. Let’s face it, performance management is an outdated and needless activity that really has stopped serving any purpose. All those activities and programs that you’ve used to monitor, promote and control performance really doesn’t compliment the culture and growth of an exponential organization that you’re aiming to build. Instead, let your employees figure things out themselves and stay focused on their achievements, results and goals.
Supporting Mediocrity
I get it you’re a people’s person, a leader everyone loves and enjoys working with and you have a hard time letting go of people. That’s because you value everyone’s contribution, no matter how significant or minor it may be. You work with underperformers to encourage them and boost their performance, because you believe that people should be given a second chance. That’s all great – if you want a team of under or average achievers. Supporting mediocrity in your employees is synonymous to being comfortable as an organization that simply exists and has no plans of being a significant player in its industry. Sure your company will exist and be marginally relevant, but will it truly shape or lead the industry if it’s filled with under or average achievers? If this is as good as it gets for your company then by all means you should be supporting mediocrity. However, if you’re serious about exponential growth and challenging your competitors, you need to make some tough choices in regards to who stays in your organization. And I’m assuming you’re going to pick the high achievers to remain.
Promoting Yourself
Every leader, much like you, wants to build a leadership legacy that’ll be remembered for decades to come. A leadership legacy that is remembered for its creativity and innovation, progressiveness and exceptionally talented people and for its impact to the world, people and communities. What’s the key here? That leadership legacies aren’t promoting the leader themselves. Instead, they focus on the impact and revolutions these leaders have brought. What your leadership brand should be based on is a purpose that’s larger than you or your organization. Everything that you, your employees and your organization then does should be directed towards making that purpose a reality. When you’ve achieved that (or gotten close to it) your leadership brand will transform into an eternalized legacy. In essence, you’ll ultimately get your fame and glory, but not if you’re promoting yourself before you promote the purpose.
What habits have you kicked off and let go of to become an even more effective and great leader? I’d love to hear about them from you.
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