8 Ways To Be A Great Leader And Not A Terrible Boss

Everyone in the corporate world (or even the startup and small business world) understands that having a dignified, inspirational leader is half the battle won.

Unfortunately, not everyone at the top understands the amount of responsibility they carry; with the lack of interest for everyone’s individual benefit, what often happens is bosses losing their guiding compass and, instead of guiding their employees into success – they lead them into both individual and collective failure.

Ways To Be A Great Leader

For everyone who owns an entrepreneurship or they are just appointed boss-man or boss-woman with an interest to keep the business thriving and their people upbeat, motivated and happy, we’re laying out a few guidelines that will help you understand ways to separate yourself from a role of tyrant and mould yourself into a role of a inspiring, supporting leader:

1. Love Your People

Unless you truly enjoy working with people, you will never be able to fit into a role of a good boss. To build successful relationships with the employees at your workplace, you need to have a genuine respect and love for them. Naturally, there will always be those who you like more or less (and that’s okay) but a general liking of people is crucial.

2. Understand You Are One of Them

Unless you were a God-appointed boss, you are just the same as your employees are. You were in their shoes at a point and you’ve probably worked your as* off to get where you are. And that’s honorable. The fact you’ve managed to single yourself out from the crowd of seemingly successful people is very respectable, we applaud. However, don’t ever expect others to have the same motivations as they do; accept them for their own talents, strivings, and ambitions and let them grow and develop towards their own goals. Recognize what’s good in each of your employees and help them nurture it.

Your employees aren’t your minions even though they are your subordinates. They are individuals with unique personalities, talents, and traits – just as you are. Forget all about “If I could do it, they can do it, too” and embrace the “Let’s see what we can do to make this happen.”

3. Be Adaptable and Understanding

Obviously, there are deadlines and expectations you are burdened with and your employees know it. However, in order to get to job done faster, adapting to the existing circumstance of things is crucial.

Unlike bosses who tend to be very rigid in their plans for project completions, leaders understand that they must follow the existing climate and situation of things, and adapt their personal style to their team members’ needs. They establish expectations clearly, understand and value each team member’s individuality and adapt their leadership approach as necessary.

4. Guide, Don’t Control, Your Team

A great number of bosses are micromanagers who feel the need to control every action; leaders, on the other hand, know that, given the right direction and support rather than control, their team will accomplish great things.

Establish frameworks and structure rather than bully into actions and empower your teams to get the work done, providing support along the way.

5. Delegate With A Clear Mind

Bosses never fully delegate anything as they may feel no one else can do the job as well as they can; leaders, however, always delegate properly. They assign tasks and then let go but they do inspect the process and expect follow-ups periodically. This is not to control but rather ensure the employees are on track to achieve the desired results.

6. Give Credit, Accept Blame

What we’re all aware of is that “bosses love to take credit for their teams’ successful results — and they’re the first to throw them under the bus when those goals are not achieved as desired”. So disrespectful.

In contrast, leaders keep their egos in check as they know their success comes from their teams’ efforts. A true leader will accept personal responsibility when a project fails and showcase their teams’ efforts when they succeed.

With a healthy attitude towards things, a leader is not only pushing his people into an even more successful arena, but they are also dodging being the target of employees’ strikes (these can last for months and cost you terribly), suing (with a good personal injury lawyer everyone knows how tough on a company things can go), resignations, etc. If you are a good leader, everything works out for the best.

7. Motivate In A Healthy Way

Leaders motivate through recognition of their team’s strengths and potentials; they encourage even those individuals who don’t see greatness in themselves, they cheer and celebrate, even the smallest of successes. Bosses motivate through fear.

8. Remind, Don’t Scold

Bosses scold and shout; they humiliate in front of everyone and keep their employees feeling disposable (at any second). Leaders reprimand rather than shout or scold or shout. When necessary, a leader will privately talk to the employee, offers constructive criticism and support for progress. Unlike an airheaded boss, the leader talks to the person without any spike in temper. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Signs of Poor Leadership: Are You Guilty of These?

What do you think is the biggest factor that contributed to the success of most businesses? Is it their money? Is it their unmatched products or services? Or is it their superb customer support?

Could be.

But one thing is for sure. A business cannot achieve its vision if it doesn’t have a great leader. Because a leader is like the head of a family. He supports you. He inspires you. And he influences you. If you are not capable of doing these, then your team won’t be able to work together, and your company will fall apart.

If you don’t want that to happen, then you should identify the signs of poor leadership early on. If you ignore these warning signs, you may find yourself on the verge of failure.

Here are the most common signs of poor leadership:

Your employees are disengaged.

In an article of Recruiter.com written by Shaley McKeever, they define disengaged employees as someone who put time – but not energy or passion – into their work. So these are basically the people who just go to work for the sake of having a work.

Officevibe, the employee engagement software that helps managers measure the ROI of business culture while making employees happier and more engaged at work, created this infographic with love.

So why do disengaged employees one of the signs of poor leadership?

Based on the study of Dale Canergie and MSW, leadership is one of the key drivers of employee engagement.

You’re too stingy to invest even in the most important things.

You won’t achieve success if you are not willing to invest. Do you provide the right tools to your employees to help them work faster? Or do you only rely on free things found in the internet?

When was the last time you signed up your employees to a skills training or leadership course? Do you provide support to your employees whenever there are upcoming seminars and conferences?

As I have mentioned earlier, a leader is like the head of a family. He supports and provides the needs of his employees to enable them to grow and do their work better.

But if you are too stingy to invest even in the most important things, your company will only grow slowly.

You’ve been receiving a lot of complaints from your clients.

When you regularly receive lots of client complaints, it is one of the signs of poor leadership. Let’s trace it back.

Your clients complain because your team is unable to deliver what your clients want. Missed deadlines… Unsatisfactory service… etc.

Why would your team be able to miss deadlines or deliver an unsatisfactory service? Maybe because they lack the guidance and support from you as their boss and leader.

You don’t regularly check the status of the project. You don’t provide the tools that can accelerate the job of your employees. And many other reasons.

While there are truly unreasonable customers (or even unreasonable employees), still, most of the problems can be traced back to your poor leadership.

Your employees are resigning.

How many of your employees have handed over their resignation paper over the past three months? Two? Five? Ten?

Or maybe, even your company’s most senior and most skilled employees have left you after all those gruelling years.

If your employees are leaving your company one after the other, then this might be because of your poor leadership. Remember, employees don’t leave companies, they leave people.

Leaders aren’t called leaders if they only bark orders. A true great leader is someone who also considers the well-being of his people which includes their career growth, emotional aspects, good professional relationships and even financial aspects.

How about you? What other signs of poor leadership do you know? Please share your thoughts in the comment box.

Do These to Become a Better Leader

If you are currently experiencing the abovementioned signs of poor leadership, then you must take action now. Learn to improve your leadership skills by downloading the following guide.

We will show you 4 things that you must absolutely do to become a better leader and form better relationships to the heart and core of your company – your employees.

Vid-mate - Dawn Golden

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