By Laurent Duperval, www.duperval.com

Leadership is as much about skills as it is about emotions. You can easily learn all the notions necessary to make you an effective leader by taking courses and by reading books. However, knowing them and applying them are two different things.

Often, our personal leadership is affected not so much by what we don't know but by what we are unwilling to do. Being unwilling to do the things required of a leader is often caused by fear and lack of self-esteem. Self-esteem has two components: how we see ourselves and how we see others. It has an effect on how we think, how we feel, how we act, and our results. Therefore, if the results you are getting from your team does not match your expectations, the problem may not be with your team: it may be with your approach to leadership.

To have any long-term impact on your team may often require studying and analyzing your own behaviours, in order to determine if they are the cause of your team's lack of performance. The following behaviours could be a signal to your self-esteem is preventing you from leading effectively, and is causing your team to perform below expectations.

1. You do a lot of micro-managing: When you micro-manage, you are signaling that you do not trust other people. By micro-managing them, that is, watching their every move and monitoring that they are doing things as you want them to be done, you are  causing more problems then you are solving. Leadership is about trust and it goes both ways. If you do not trust your team members, they, in turn, will not trust you. If they do not trust you, you must spend more energy to get their cooperation to move forward.

Furthermore, you are preventing them from getting things done. Instead of spending their time working on an issue or task, they spend it reporting to you or managing your interruptions. It fosters resentment, frustration, and missed deadlines.

Solution : let people do their work, and interrupt them as little as possible. Every unplanned interruption reduces the productivity of an individual. He or she needs time and effort to return to the same state of mind prior to the interruption. In fact, an ill-timed intrusion can completely disrupt the creative process.

2. You are afraid of having employees that shine more than you do: most successful leaders will tell you that their success has as much to do with their talents as the talents of the people around them. Good leaders find a way to be surrounded by people who are more competent than they. They do not feel threatened by others' talents. In fact, they will encourage the people around them to make the best use possible of their skills.

Solution : change your perspective. Just because someone is better than you at certain things does not make you appear incompetent. On the contrary, when leaders manage to surround themselves with highly competent people, they are respected for their ability to attract such talent.

3. You don't share credit when things go well: one thing employees hate is a leader who takes all the credit for good ideas and results. At some point, if team members don't feel they get the credit they deserve, they might just decide to stop providing any new input. They might even decide to move to another company where they feel they will be better appreciated.

Solution : accept that others may have better ideas than you. Crediting others for their ideas builds your credibility and shows confidence on your part. Furthermore, it builds loyalty among your team members because they feel respected and valued.

4. You blame others when things go bad: nobody likes a leader who refuses to take at least part of the blame when things go wrong. Looking to lay blame on others makes a leader appear weak and selfish. It also causes team members to defend themselves vehemently and deflect the blame onto others. This can become a vicious circle that undermines your team's morale. Blaming rarely leaves a good taste in anyone's mouth.

Solution: the role of leader often requires one to take the blame and to shield the team. Putting your team on the spot, especially in front of other stakeholders, usually brings more bad will than good will. Instead of trying to lay blame, focus on understanding what caused the issues at hand and finding a way to prevent them in the future.

5. You do not delegate: an effective leader must be able to delegate. However, simply delegating tasks is not enough. Once you decide to delegate a task, you also must be willing to delegate the decision-making aspect. In other words, you must delegate responsibility and authority otherwise nobody will be willing to make decisions, and you become a bottleneck in the decision process. Not laying blame is a critical aspect of delegation. Once you delegate responsibility and accountability for a task, you must also accept a certain level of failure commensurate with that task. No matter what, people will make mistakes. If they fear severe consequences because of a mistake, it will paralyse them and your delegation process will be ineffective.

Solution: delegate responsibility and authority to make decisions. If need be, set specific milestones in order to be informed about the progress of the task and to prevent any catastrophic failures. Such milestones should only be for informational purposes, not for decision-making purposes.

6. You have difficulty accepting others' ideas: systematically dismissing other people's ideas can quickly label you as confrontational, stubborn, and lacking vision. By doing things “your way” only, your team cannot research and implement new and possibly better ways of doing things. Progress will often come from the most unlikely places: a new hire, someone from a different industry, etc. However, an unwillingness to listen to new ideas coming from unexpected places will prevent the infusion of new blood and new thinking in your decision process. This eventually leads to creativity atrophy and stagnation.

Solution: be willing and open to listen to new ideas. While all ideas do not have merit, by showing a willingness to entertain them you stimulate the creativity and inventiveness of your team. Instead of looking to be the sole provider of new ideas, create episodic situations that allow you to generate and harvest the best ideas (forexample brainstorming sessions, retreats, and so on).

7. You need to show them who's the boss: if you need to show “them” who's the boss, by force or by threat, you've lost the battle. You may get compliance, but you will not get commitment. Your team should recognize you as the leader, with no need to force that realization upon them. You can gain their trust, loyalty, and respect simply by virtue of your behaviour.

Solution: leaders inspire people to do the best they can, while bosses need to push their people to do the minimum required. By doing all of the above, in time you will naturally emerge as “the leader” rather than “the boss.”

© 2008 Laurent Duperval, All rights reserved

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