Leadership skills are just a small part of a management position. And without being a skilled leader, it is difficult to be an effective manager. Are you making mistakes when managing your staff that will be difficult to recover from if they aren’t corrected now? Before you continue down the same path, consider these mistakes and learn how to avoid them and become a better leader.

1. Do you walk the floor to see what’s going on? An old-fashioned management technique suggested that supervisors should frequently walk through the production floor to meet with the workers. The idea was to strike up conversations and build relationships, but it also clearly sets the manager apart from their employees in an awkward way. Your staff wants to see you working, not see you watch them work. It is intimidating and unhelpful.
2. Do you ask for constant feedback from your team? Having an open door policy is also considered a hallmark of good management strategies, but leaders have learned that there are limits. Asking your team for constant feedback is as distracting as never asking them for any. When you rely on small bits of information you may also start to react too quickly or to the wrong things all together. Be available, but don’t react too quickly.
3. Do you give them impossible tasks to challenge them? Some management styles refer to this as “stretch goals.” These are tasks that are intended to challenge the employee to stretch their skills and knowledge to complete them properly. However, stretch goals are often poorly designed and create impossible tasks rather than situations where someone can learn. This stresses out the employee and distracts them from the work they need to be doing.
4. Do you feel the need to polish their work when it completed? One of the worst compulsions that a manager can act upon is the need to re-do any work that has already been done. Your staff may not complete tasks with exact the steps you would, but that doesn’t mean their work is faulty. To avoid micromanaging, some people will review the final product and make changes so it is more in line with their vision. But this sends just as a bad a message to your staff as micromanagement. Trust the professionals you’ve hired.

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