Each of you, as leaders, has a passion for achieving your leadership goals and aspirations.

And as a member of the About Leaders community, you see the importance of taking the time to learn about other leaders and how to refine your leadership skills. With this in mind, I want to share some of the extremely valuable and fascinating information that people have told me about their leaders.

The feedback I hear ranges from positive comments to deep frustrations.

Most often I hear the frustrations - the leadership behaviors that annoy this person about another person which results in lower productivity and less than desirable performance.

Here are Examples

People come to me and say comments like:

• “My manager doesn’t listen.” 
• “My employee doesn’t show a sense of urgency.”
• “My co-worker doesn’t share information”
• “My _____ doesn’t _____.”

How would you fill in the blanks?

Try it! This exercise is very valuable because it provides each of us an opportunity to reflect on needed conversations. Think about specific behaviors that are holding us back and potential barriers to accelerating our leadership skills.

Why Care about Barriers?

A total commitment to leadership success means challenging our thinking, priorities, and blind spots.

Unfortunately, what people don’t communicate to us are our behavioral blind spots – the things we routinely do to others but don’t realize the impact.

When blind spots are not revealed, and the truth about our behavior is not openly discussed, we continue to operate on cruise control.

We keep doing the same things over and over. As a result of our "unconscious incompetence" our learning is stifled. WE become our largest barrier to leadership success.

Barriers to Leadership

Over the next several weeks I will reveal the “Top 10 Barriers to Leadership” that I have heard people communicate about their leaders. The purpose of the “Barriers to Leadership” series is to provide a discussion that all of us will want to participate in, genuinely reflect on, and ultimately increase our awareness of leadership barriers that affect everyone.

Some of the Top 10 Barriers will be things you have heard before, behaviors you have personally witnessed, and maybe a few surprises. Try to guess at least 2 of the Top 10 leadership barriers that employees have said are the most frustrating leadership behaviors of all.

Courtesy - About Leaders

he proof you’re looking for doesn’t exist. Rock solid, guaranteed, “won’t fail” proof — it’s not out there.

As a business leader, if you wait to make a decision until you know you’re right, you’re usually making the wrong decision. To be successful, you have to develop the habit of trusting your instincts.

You won’t always be right.

That’s a certainty that you need to get used to. Despite insurmountable proof, you won’t always be able to make a decision that turns into the results you want.

That’s because proof is based on history not on reality. Experience and an honest interpretation of results will tell you how you should have made a decision in the past. But it won’t always accurately predict how you should make a decision right now.

There are numerous factors that are different now from before. Waiting until you have better timing isn’t a smart move either.

What do you do?

What should you do when you don’t have the proof you want in order to make a decision that you are sure won’t fail?

1. Stop looking for guarantees. — There are no guarantees in life. The proof you’re looking for doesn’t exist. That “won’t fail” journey you want to walk is just a fantasy in your head. Figuring out the right move starts with a shift in your philosophy. To make the best decision you need to believe that there’s a possibility that whatever your decision, it will be wrong. Chances are you’re going to make a mistake.
2. Be more honest about your weaknesses. — Stop pretending like you don’t make mistakes. You do. Sometimes you make big mistakes that have long term consequences. Denial just impedes forward progress. By acknowledging mistakes (and apologizing when necessary) you teach your brain and your employees to adapt to realistic benchmarks for success.
3. Take smaller, more recoverable positions. — Instead of lunging boldly after schemes that involve luck or fortuitous timing, make decisions that limit uncertainty. Stable long term circumstances give you the best environment for improving on decisions that you’ve made in the past that might not have been the best choice at the time. By taking tiny steps forward all the time, you limit the number of times you need to dramatically change course. That means there’s less drama, chaos, and frustration for everyone involved.

Making great decisions requires another set of skills.

(It’s requires you being curious and interpreting clues.)

The better you are at looking for answers and finding answers from what you see around you, the better you will be at making great decisions. Especially when you don’t have enough information to be guaranteed that what you’re doing will be successful.

Take for example the complexity of gas station fuel type analysis.  Which type of fuel is purchased most frequently by consumers?

You might readily answer that Regular Octane 87 type of fuel is the most popular purchase by buyers. But how would you know that was true if you just had a few moments to make a snap decision?

(Just because that’s what you might purchase doesn’t mean that’s what everyone purchases. Just because everyone you know purchases that type of fuel doesn’t mean that it is the most popular type of fuel sold.)

You can know with certainty the answer to this question by simply looking at the  selection buttons at the gas pump. In just a few seconds of analysis, you can see quite clearly which type of gas is the most popular. The button that is scratched, faded or gouged the most is most likely the choice of fuel that is selected most by buyers.

In a few seconds, you can accurately answer a complex question that would otherwise take much longer to answer. You could stand outside the gas station and count the number of cars and their selections. You could analyze gas container buying and shipping patterns over the weeks and months ahead.

Or, you could just look at which button on the outside of a pump handle is scratched the most. With a few more steps and a few more seconds of effort, you could analyze the buying patterns for every pump at the gas station.

If you want to know, you should probably start looking for answers. That’s where great decision start. With you looking to do the right thing.

The evidence you need to make a good decision is all around you.

Look for answers. Interpret clues honestly. Take steps toward where you want to be.

The only guarantee in life is that if you keep moving In the right direction, you are getting closer to being successful.

Courtesy - Danwald Schmidt

There is a critical and substantial difference between managing to lead and managing to supervise. Managers who lead show others the way, while managers who supervise tend to direct and control. Leaders are individuals who motivate and inspire the individuals around them, whether they are coworkers or employees.

People often believe that “leaders are born not made,” but this is far from the truth. Most people who have the desire and internal motivation can learn to incorporate effective leadership skills into their style of management. Doing this often includes making changes and alterations in mindsets and attitudes, without which many managers will never become the type of leaders others want to follow.

Individuals who fall into the category of traditional supervising managers find themselves generally directing and controlling the people under them. They tend to be rigid in their thinking, ineffective and unproductive when compared to managers who are also leaders.

Managers as leaders are excellent motivators. They are more productive because they are able to tap into individuals as key organizational resources and rely on their cooperative efforts and results to get things accomplished effectively and efficiently. They ultimately assume cheerleader roles to inspire employees to greater heights of achievement. Most managers are surprised by how much more their departments and units are able to accomplish when they are effectively led.

If managers wish to achieve higher levels of results, they must learn to delegate various responsibilities to their employees and motivate them, rather than simply use control management methods. Due to higher expectation levels, results then tend to increase.

Managers as leaders make certain that employees become empowered to accomplish more through greater levels of autonomy and responsibility. Most importantly, this change allows managers more time to concentrate on the important strategic issues affecting their entire department rather than focusing on daily tactical issues that can just as easily be delegated to individual employees.

Managers who lead are motivated by their own personal vision of what is possible to achieve. They are always focused on the accomplishment of major long-term goals. These goals provide them with deeply held convictions of what they desire to attain and how to go about achieving it.

Their personal determination and perseverance are what attracts others to their vision and motivates them to not only believe in them, but also to embrace their attainment. Traditional managers, on the other hand, do not generally have these convictions or a vision for the future due to their having chosen to operate in a more reactive rather than proactive manner.

Managers as leaders inspire the active participation of individual employees by communicating their vision in a clear and convincing manner. Everything they say and do effuses passion and enthusiasm, which become contagious. Managers who lead are able to easily articulate their message and frequently “talk up” their personal vision. They work to create mental images of their vision that employees can conceptually see and feel.

Managers as leaders tend to have positive self-images. This affirmative sense of self translates into confidence and a keen awareness of their personal capabilities. These managers tend to build and develop similar characteristics in their employees by delegating and effectively sharing their power and professional knowledge. This is in direct contrast to more traditional managers who generally tend to hoard power and information, feeling that any form of delegation undermines their power base and authority.

Many managers are results-oriented with a zero-tolerance for mistakes and failure. This results in employees hiding their failures for fear of possibly severe repercussions. They tend to cover errors and misjudgments by altering information or misleading managers regarding certain results or oversights. This is one of the leading causes of managers being blindsided by unforeseen events and circumstances.

Leading managers, on the other hand, view mistakes and failures as learning experiences. They understand that they and their employees cannot grow and stretch their abilities without making mistakes and failing. They consistently encourage employees to implement new ideas, concepts and approaches and stretch their individual capabilities in order to learn from mistakes.

This often produces more results-driven atmospheres than those seen through strictly supervisory management styles and practices. It enables leaders and their departments or units to react faster to evolving conditions and even anticipate certain changes before they produce negative impacts.

Managers who lead their people build trust and rapport through various mutual learning experiences, which are generally accompanied by trial-and-error approaches and outcomes. They are quick to listen and observe throughout the process, with one of their most positive attributes being their ability to offer appropriate feedback in non-threatening ways.

Courtesy - Leaders to Leader