Brian Tracy identifies three leadership killers: criticizing, complaining, and condemning. Each tanks employee morale and performance. Instead, focus on solutions, intervene constructively, ask for ideas, and reinforce what your people do well.
Empower others to perform at their best by continually reminding them how good they are and how much you believe in them. Hello, I'm Brian Tracy and in this video I'm going to talk about some of the biggest leadership mistakes that people make today. Mistakes that can be very costly for your life and career. One of the best leadership qualities that a manager can develop is to build self esteem, self confidence and self respect in others. By focusing on building self esteem, you can help your team reach peak performance. Each person has unlimited potential and can flourish in the right environment. They have huge reservoirs of creativity that can be unleashed to solve problems, overcome obstacles, and achieve business goals. This includes you. Because of this, the leader is the most important person in any organization. The leader sets the tone by the way he talks, behaves, responds to others, and treats people on a day to day basis. People tend to follow the leader in that they imitate or mimic the behavior of the leader toward others. When the leader treats other people with courtesy and respect, everyone eventually begins treating their co workers with the same courtesy and respect. As a leader, everything you do is carefully noted and affects the behavior of the person below you. A kind word from you to one of your staff members can make them feel happy all day long. An angry word can make them feel frustrated and afraid and insecure for the rest of the day. So you must be careful about what you say. There are specific behaviors that you can practice each day and in each interaction to raise your team's self esteem and make them feel good about themselves. When you deliberately take the time and make the effort to build self esteem in other people and simultaneously eliminate the fears that hold people back from putting their whole hearts into their work. A peak performance work environment, like flowers in the spring, blooms naturally around you. However, we've all had bad bosses and perhaps some of you have made these leadership mistakes in the past. The good news is we can all learn to be better leaders by looking at our previous mistakes. The first leadership mistake that managers make is that they criticize other people, refuse to criticize anyone for any reason. When people make mistakes, you focus on the solution, on what can be done rather than who did it and who is to blame. This is the mark of the superior leader with admirable leadership qualities. We all know that destructive criticism is harmful. Personally, we all hate to be the recipients of destructive criticism. It can make us angry for days and even years. Destructive criticism attacks our self esteem, hurts our self image, hinders us from reaching peak performance, and makes us angry and defensive. And we're all the same. So if it is so hateful to us, why would we ever do it to someone else? The second leadership mistake people make is that they complain for any reason. Usually they learn it from one or both parents in childhood. Complainers are always looking for something or someone to complain about. They tend to associate with other complainers. They talk together at work and socialize. After work, they go out for lunch and coffee breaks together. Complaining becomes a natural way of life for them. But there's a major problem with both criticizing and complaining. In both situations, you are positioning yourself as a victim. When you complain, you actually weaken yourself. You feel inferior and inadequate. You feel angry and resentful. You feel negative and unsure. Your level of self esteem and self respect actually declines as you complain about anything to someone else. If you're not happy about something, as the manager, the leader, you are entitled to bring it to the attention of the other person. You are entitled and responsible for putting it on the table and discussing it. These are admirable leadership qualities that you must learn to develop to become a respected manager. If you are not happy with a behavior or an outcome, your job is to actively intervene to improve or correct the situation. But you do this by being honest and objective about the distance between what you expected and what has actually occurred. You then invite ideas and input on how you and the other person or persons can solve the problem or improve the situation. But you never complain. The third leadership mistake people make is that of condemning anyone for any reason, either inside or outside of your company. When you condemn or say negative things about other people, usually in private, you demoralize the listener and the self esteem of the other person will be severely lowered. When you condemn people and accuse them of things outside the company, someone will eventually tell the exact person what you have said, usually in a distorted version, and it will come back to haunt you. This seems to be a law of nature and completely unavoidable, so the best thing is not to say anything negative at all. These recommendations are equally as important when you are talking about competitors or customers in the marketplace. Never criticize your competitors, admire them if they're more successful in some areas than you are, and then look for ways to produce even better products and services and sell them even more effectively. Never complain about people and problems outside your business. Instead, use that same amount of mental energy to find solutions and to resolve the problems that led to the complaints in the first place. When you develop positive leadership qualities and are genuinely a cheerful leader, your general attitude suffuses like a warm light and fills the entire workplace. You create an environment where people are relaxed and happy and feel good about themselves and their work. You will raise the self esteem of everyone in your workplace. Before we wrap up, I'd like to leave you with a thought to share with your friends and co workers. Empower others to perform at their best by continually reminding them how good they are and and how much you believe in them. Now I'd love to hear from you. So my question today is have you ever had a boss that made these mistakes? Have you ever made them as a leader yourself? Leave a comment below and I'll be sure to follow up with you. Thanks for watching. And remember, if you want to change your future, take action and take action now. If you enjoyed this video and feel it was valuable in helping you become a better leader, subscribe to my channel like this video and share this video with your friends and click the button on the screen for a free gift. Thanks again for watching.
