In: Operations Management
wha tare the areas of weakness within the leadership domain?
Leadership is a lot more than giving orders and demanding
results. A balance needs to be created in the areas including
collaboration, delegation, fairness, and firmness among other
aspects. The weakness of the leadership domain not only cause a
disorderly workplace but may also lead to losses and messy
situations. Leaders are also human beings and hence may have some
of the weaknesses common to the leadership domain. They should,
however, scrutinize their behaviors and psychology and try to find
out and improve on their weaknesses, rather than waiting for
experience to improve them. Some of these weaknesses may include a
lack of knowledge or awareness, micromanagement, and other kinds of
approaches and behavior that cause negative actions and
deterioration of relationships at workplaces, among other
drawbacks. Below are the areas of weaknesses within the leadership
domain.
Standing apart from the team- some leaders like to have a too
formal, rigid, and conservative approach towards leadership. They
may stand apart from the team so that others start to view them as
above and superior to it. Followers often do not find such leaders
empathetic, friendly, and/or caring. Also while many leaders are
found good at initiating projects, not all are equally interested
throughout it. A leader should ensure that they remain an integral
part of their team, and practice proper follow-ups and feedbacks
even when they have a busy schedule. An open-door policy is always
fruitful for communication and to avoid ambiguity and confusion at
the workplace. More proactive approaches including
relationship-building meetings, collaboration with auditing teams,
and others need to be adopted on a more regular basis.
Being too critical- leaders who overly criticize their employees
soon lose their popularity while not making any gains for being
extremely critical. Disrespect, employee-burnouts, and a decrease
in motivation are some of the common consequences of over
criticality. Criticism should be as carefully structured as
motivation to not only improve the performance but to ensure that
employee alignment is further improved.
Micromanagement- Micromanagement is scrutinizing, auditing, and
checking too-frequently and without integrating the trust approach
and factor. While some managers like to frequently check on what
the employees are doing, they do it in unreasonably forceful and
authoritative ways. Also, elements including trust and empathy are
not integrated into the approach. The employees come to think that
the leadership does not have any confidence or trust in them. An
ideal leadership does not merely aim to accomplish tasks but also
uses appropriate behavior and approaches for it, which includes
trust, cooperation, empathy, care, friendliness, empowerment, and
others.
Communicating overly- some leaders nowadays require their employees
to send them reports, data, and information at all times and even
on trivial matters. Technology including smartphones, laptops,
internet, and fast communication protocols including 4G provides
for it. In many cases, it has been found that the leaders only call
for this constant contact and communication in the name of
discipline or the sake of it. Many of them do not themselves go
through these reports and information. Overburdening employees in
the name of maintaining discipline can be very bad for the
relationship. Leaders should ensure that they maintain trust and
integrity in the leader-follower relationship and do not overburden
employees or engaged them in unfruitful ways.
Failing to set clear objectives, goals, and expectations, and
acting without any honesty or integrity are also some other issues
found with leadership.