An organization can only run with good leadership. But are all people in leadership positions competent enough to do justice to their designation? Certainly not. Only some of your project teams perform consistently. Only some of your departments have the same environment and mutual working relationships among the team members.
What makes all this difference? Leadership. Some leaders possess toxic traits, making working under them a struggle. Some subordinates cannot complete the work, while others need help developing an atmosphere for healthy working relationships and competitiveness. You can seek professionals to help them acquire leadership development programs to address such shortcomings.
This article helps you understand how a workplace is affected if leaders lack the basic skills to perform efficiently, followed by ways to save the workplace from negative influence.
How incompetent leadership becomes a negative influence on teams
Leadership requires grit and courage. It is a responsibility bigger than many of you understand. If leaders do not know how to take the whole team together and build mutual trust, they can become a bad influence on the people around them in the following ways:
1. They can’t balance criticism with encouragement
Leaders can correct when their team members go wrong somewhere. But they are carrying a responsibility on their shoulders. When they use their words for correction, they can be discouraged and get too negative. When that happens, it can affect the work performance of their subordinates.
2. Incompetent leaders keep their ego first
For some people, their ego comes before any order of business. If a leader has this trait, he/she can get too toxic. They cannot become effective leaders. They need training to control their emotions and think rationally instead of letting their emotions get better.
3. They fear anyone stealing the limelight from them
If a leader cannot digest a subordinate having a better answer or a better solution than themselves, he will lash out and undermine the efforts and achievements of his/her team. You need to check if your team heads have such insecurities. If they have them, it can destroy your workforce and take their morale to the ground.
4. They try to boss around
Some people have an obsession with micromanaging every little thing. When people in leadership positions try to micro-manage and school their subordinates by making them dependent on every little decision, the team members never grow. When a subordinate is growing professionally, the leadership could be more effective.
5. They become irritable with questions
One of the most prevalent toxic traits among incompetent leaders is that they can’t take questions posed to them. They do not care if they are reasonable. While a leader must have a big heart and be welcoming when a sub-ordinate has a question or a concern, the situation is seldom ideal in a corporate environment.
6. Incompetent leaders act too confident
A leader must be decisive and confident. But are all leaders as confident in the hearts of their hearts? Not really. Some of them only pretend to be stiff in their stances to come off as confident. Such leaders require coaching on leadership skills to build self-confidence before sabotaging the futures of the team and business.
How do we deal with incompetent leadership in the workplace?
Many people serving in the higher echelons of your company may need more skills to lead a group of people. Emerging leaders may also lack some of the traits essential to leaving a positive impression.
If they lack those soft skills, the influence can be detrimental to your company. To save your workforce from negative influence and make the managers and decision-makers true leaders, you can follow the ways listed below:
1. Identify problems on time
Before you solve a problem, you need to identify it. When you identify the problems employees face, the only task left is finding a cure. No employee must have ill-will toward a decision-maker or vice versa. Engage your human resource department and ensure that performance and working relationships are checked.
2. Keep an active feedback mechanism
Your employees need to be aware of their worries. Give them a chance to express them to the concerned authority. Not all leaders are good listeners. For this purpose, you need to put in place an effective feedback mechanism to compensate for the void that a leader’s incompetence can leave. When you have the concerns of your workforce collected, it becomes easier to reduce the damages posed by the decision-makers incompetence.
3. Ensure regular skills training for employees
As a business owner or a manager, you can save your team members by identifying such loopholes in due time and training the leaders by hiring professionals. It is a good practice to ensure that your decision-makers get regular training to stay capable of fulfilling their responsibility. You must ensure the professionals work on areas of improvement of your leadership to the best of your organizational benefits.
If you live in the UAE, you have a good chance of finding amazing mentors for leadership skills learning. You can hire a company offering courses on leadership training to ensure that your leaders only help your team grow.
Do the leaders in your company need to be more competent?
Some of them are. The reasons can vary. However, the victim is your workforce because their decisions affect your company’s daily affairs. In such times, you must remember that your workforce is your asset. They deserve good leaders to help them grow professionally and personally.
Give your team members good learning and growth opportunities by ensuring your company leadership becomes true leaders!
Read More:
How To Improve The Commitment Of Employees
Benefits of Employee Training in an Organization
