Leadership is beyond telling people what to do. It's about becoming an inspiring, engaging and a forward-thinking influence. You should be perceived as a leader who gets real results by proactively serving the changing demands of the market. As a leader how well do you fit in this regard? Here are signs that tell you your leadership is bad, doesn't fit in and may need urgent review.
YOU ARE ALWAYS UNDER PRESSURE
Pressure is the first symptom of disorder. Being consistently under pressure suggests you are probably not running things right, especially with your people. It is either you are becoming too controlling,under delegating or hijacking responsibilities and your people have chosen to play the spectator. It may also mean you're impatient with mistakes, learners or have been failing to develop your people enough to trust them to perform up to expectation on their deliverables. Any of these reasons boils down to the fact that your leadership style is below the line and needs you to redress.
YOU MAKE POOR CHOICES
It's human to make mistakes,but when it becomes mistakes after mistakes then your leadership judgment comes into serious questioning. Always making a poor outing on your decision-making could be proof that you are unthoughtful and not engaging the appropriate intellectual depth required of a leader. Being continually perceived this way might cost you the respect of your followers.
PEOPLE QUIT
There is nothing wrong with people exiting an organization but there is everything wrong when the turn over rate assumes a serious dimension especially when key people begin to quit. The simple fact is, when people do not approve of your leadership style and are convinced you're unwilling to change, they simply walk away.You cannot be right all the time,so when a considerable number of people begin to leave your organization, it's a sign your leadership is perceived in a bad light and you have to make changes.
YOU MAKE EMPTY PROMISES:
Making promises you don't intend or have capacity to keep to employees in order to keep or engage their service is an evidence that you are not inspiring enough to sustain loyalty and also lack the persuasion skill of a leader. Besides, it makes people view you as manipulative,self centred and untrustworthy. Thus ranking you low on integrity without which leadership success will be a mirage.
YOU BECOME COMPLACENT:
Your hunger for learning or personal development is on a downward spiral,resulting in a low drive for excellence. You grow nonchalant to personal change, using old approaches to solve new problems, and reluctant to dare the seemingly impossible. If your passion for high standards is on the decline, and you seem to have lost your competitive edge,its probably a sign that your leadership has waned and needs a quick upgrade.
YOU DON'T HOLD YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE:
Leadership is about taking responsibility. If you always look for ways to blame others for the failure means your courage for accountability is low and by extension your leadership is weak. When failure happens,a leader's duty is not to focus on the associated damage nor should it be on who gets the knock for the outcome. The priority should be to determine what lessons to learn and where the need for improvement lies in order to avert a recurrence while securing a future success.
YOU DON'T FOLLOW THROUGH
When corporate goals are set, your people will depend on you to see it through to a successful execution. It often relates to your capability at follow up. You build and sustain a group's momentum towards a particular goal by providing the needed focus,motivation and supervision until the objective is seen to be achieved by the group. Simply put,if you falter on follow up, your leadership is suspect and needs a review.
YOU DON'T MEET DEADLINES
Leadership is about mobilizing and motivating your team to achieve goals within the specified time frame. When you consistently fail to meet your deadline it sure tells you are a non effective leader.