Inexperience offers the opportunity to improve or the peril of developing patterns that hamstring your future.
Here are two tragic blunders of inexperienced leaders.
#1. Resisting – rather than actively seeking – input and feedback.
Improvement requires more than repetition. If you repeat the same ineffective behavior, you simply continue falling below your potential. Consider how you run meetings.
Meetings suck because those who lead them continue the same ineffective practices.
Ineffective leaders don’t define effective meetings. They don’t seek feedback on the way they run meetings. They simply continue repeating the same ineffective behaviors.
Confidence based on repetition – without feedback – solidifies poor performance.
5 steps to feedback that really work:
- Declare an intention. “I’m working to lead engaging meetings that create energy, rather than drain it.”
- What suggestions do you have for leading meetings that engage the team?
- What am I doing that helps the team engage?
- What do you see me doing that disengages the team?
- I’m going to ‘xyz’ at our next meeting. Let me know how that hinders or enhances engagement?
Who cares if you’ve been leading meetings for fifteen years. What have you learned? How have you improved?
#2. Avoiding tough conversations.
The person you can’t confront is in control.
Leaders who can’t have tough conversations are stuck in mediocrity.
7 tips for tough conversations:
- Separate performance from the person.
- Discuss performance frequently. Repetition enhances comfort.
- Affirm strengths 3x more than you discuss weaknesses.
- Focus on behaviors.
- Choose small actionable steps forward.
- Celebrate progress when you see it. A simple acknowledgement of progress energizes people.
- Focus more on next time rather than last time. Saying, “You screwed up,” might be necessary on occasion, but as a steady diet, it’s sickening.
For more tragic blunders of the inexperienced click here.
How might inexperienced leaders effectively seek input and feedback?
What tips for having tough conversations might you suggest?
