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Hi everyone!
Let’s face it….we are all human and we all make mistakes. Today I’m here to talk to you about the biggest mistakes I see business owners making when managing and leading people on their team. By no means are these the only mistakes I see people making…but they are the most common and they can definitely be prevented. So let’s dive in!
Mistake #1:
- The first mistake I see business owners making – in no particular order – is they somehow expect that magically their team member can read their mind.
When this happens, business owners often don’t set specific and clearly communicated expectations for things like schedules, deliverables, acknowledging new tasks, learning how to handle situations where things go wrong, learning the process of how to request time off, and more!
This can be troublesome!
And it doesn’t matter whether this person is a contractor or an employee… you cannot expect this person to read your mind! When you do that, you’re just asking for a bunch of trouble. No one can pass the mind-reading class.
So don’t expect your team members to know what’s going on in that head of yours. They don’t think like you. They aren’t you. Even if they’re an entrepreneur and they’re a solo person in their own business as a freelancer, they can’t possibly think the way you do. Not only do you bring your own way of thinking – based on your personality style – but with all of your experiences, biases, and beliefs, it’s just impossible.
Mistake #2:
- The second mistake I see people making is not communicating enough about the big picture. When you have a project that’s going to a member of your team – whether they’re an employee or contractor – and you don’t communicate how that project, task, or role fits into the bigger picture, you’re missing out on a real opportunity.
When an employee or team member understands where their role or project fits into the bigger picture, they can make decisions and suggestions without having to come to you every time. Or at the very least they can come to you and say “I understand the project fits in here. This other thing that’s a bigger priority just came up and here’s what I suggest we do.”
Phew! Sounds relieving, right?
So make sure you’re communicating the big picture and where things fit in. You’re not going to be revealing so much of your strategy that this person’s going to run off and recreate your business. Don’t worry about sharing this kind of stuff with these people on your team. If you hire right – the way I teach in the 90 Days to a Profitable and Productive Team Program – you’re not going to have that problem.
Mistake #3:
- The third mistake I see business owners make when it comes to directing and leading their team is not giving enough feedback. And by feedback I mean both positive and constructive information the team member can use to either do more of the thing that’s working or less of the thing that’s not.
Most often business owners need to give twice as much positive feedback as they’re giving and probably twice as much constructive feedback as their giving. Usually it’s because for one, they’re busy and they think that person knows they did a good job. There’s a saying that says- “good job” is enough….But I’m here to tell you no. It’s not. We all need to get positive reinforcement.
The other reason that people don’t give feedback (besides being busy) is because they just don’t want to. They want to avoid being the bearer of bad news and telling someone they didn’t do a good job. You know this is happening in your business when you’re the one fixing the mistakes. You know, it’s 3 o’clock in the morning and you’re in WordPress trying to do something before a launch because your team member didn’t get it right the first time.
They probably didn’t get it right because you expected them to read your mind and you didn’t set clear expectations. Then you didn’t have enough time built into the process that you could give them feedback and have them correct it. If you’re always correcting your team member’s mistakes or missed expectations, then they never get to develop and grow and you are going to always have to be fixing that same mistake.
So that leads me to recommending that if you’ve struggled with any of these mistakes and you want to start avoiding them, you should check out 90 Days to a Profitable and Productive Team over at profitableandproductiveteam.com. In that program I’m teaching you my seven step system to hire, work with, and lead a profitable and productive team. A team that is results driven, accountable, and responsive so you have more freedom and they’re helping you to grow your business.
Head on over to profitableandproductiveteam.com and check it out. Until the next time, this is Deanna Maio from Delegated to Done wishing you lots of fantastic success. Bye for now.