How to Quickly Overcome Inexperience
10 dangers of inexperienced leaders:
- Needing to be liked.
- Blaming.
- Emotional decisions.
- Impulsiveness.
- Trying too hard.
- Neglecting the long term.
- Focusing on symptoms rather than causes.
- Aiming without pulling the trigger.
- Meddling.
- Forget to say thank you. (Speaking of thanks, many of these points were inspired by contributors on the Leadership Freak Facebook Page. Thank you!)
10 questions every inexperienced leader must keep asking:
- What type of world are my behaviors building around me?
- How many questions did I ask today?
- What am I learning?
- Am I acting or reacting?
- When was the last time I spent an hour in self-reflection?
- What's the most fun?
- Am I soliciting input from experienced leaders and staff?
- Do I welcome ideas from everyone?
- How are we leveraging everyone's strengths?
- Who do I feel threatened by? Why?
12 powerful suggestions for inexperienced leaders:
- You matter in ways you can't imagine. Watch your tone, body language, and attitude, everyone else is.
- Be optimistic about the future and realistic about the present. Optimism frustrates others if you don't acknowledge present realities and problems, first.
- Challenges aren't your biggest opportunity, people are.
- Be tender when you're being tough.
- Remove manipulators and backstabbers. They may quickly deliver results but everyone around them slows down.
- Courageously ask dumb questions. (From the Chief Security Officer of Microsoft)
- Protect your team from political fallout and organizational interference.
- Believe your perspective matters. Listen to yourself as well as others.
- Avoid extreme reactions.
- Recruit mentors, advisors, and, coaches. Get support.
- Take responsibility.
- Make the best interests of your organization and others your priority, always.
Bonus: Stick with it. The reason it's called experience is it takes time.
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What can you add to these lists?
What can you modify or amplify?
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Tags: Growth, Leadership, Leadership Development, Organizational Development
This entry was posted on March 22, 2012 at 7:56 am and is filed under Fear, Humility, Influence, Insecurity, Leading, Listening, Marks of leaders, Optimism, Personal Growth, Strengths, Taking others higher. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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