One of the greatest mistakes people make when filling leadership roles is choosing the wrong person for the job. The difference between success and failure begins with choosing the right leaders and ejecting the wrong ones.
Common mistakes when choosing leaders:
- Introverts are overlooked. Extroversion is not a requirement to lead.
- Alluring qualities like charisma, talent, education, or good looks carry too much weight in the decision-making process. Any of these can open doors, but none compensates for bad character traits like a sense of entitlement, laziness, insensitivity, or cowardice.
- Defining leadership by a high rate of productivity, by getting things done. Leaders should focus on people. You become a leader when you get things done through others, when you leverage their power to achieve team goals.
Consider the following when assessing someone’s leadership potential:
- How does this person make people feel?
- How does this person maximize the skills and talents of others?
- How does he/she impart a sense of mission?
- Can he/she develop team members?
- What are his/her values?
- Is this person guided by values when making decisions, or is he/she reactionary?
- What is his/her definition of leadership?
- Is he or she curious and, if so, how is that expressed?
- Where does this person fall on the spectrum of optimism and pessimism?
- Can this person appreciate the affect of their behaviors on others?
- Can this person consider another's point of view?
- Can he/she focus on what needs to be done without getting mired in how things get done?
- Will he/she include others in decision-making?
- How does this person respond to failure or criticism?
- How does he/she respond to authority?
