Episode #1: Five Deadly And Dastardly Leader Misperceptions

Becoming a leader is usually because we were superior to our colleagues. Maybe we had better technical knowledge, more experience, were better organized, worked harder than the others. The problem is that for a hammer everything looks like a nail and we are the same. We imagine everyone else is similarly motivated like us. “If you just do what I did you will be fine” is what we tell them. Not true!

Here are five of the most common misconceptions leaders have about their team members

1. Everybody is the same.

We believe that there is a commonality of purpose within our team. They are basically looking for similar outcomes. We can treat them and interact with them the same way. The reality is we will have people in different stages of their life and career. They have different educational backgrounds, grew up in different locations, have different families and think quite differently from one another and from us.

2. Everybody wants the same thing out of work

We are highly motivated and that is part of the reason they made us the boss. We love challenges, to be creative, to push the envelope. We love the thrill of the hunt for business, the cut and thrust of negotiating with buyers. Probably none of these things excite someone who works n the back office. Some people see a job as a job and their real passion is the hobby or their family or friends. Work is just a means to an end. They do their work and then want to go home and forget about it.

3. Everybody wants to be promoted

You worked super hard because you had tremendous ambition. You now synthesise your desires with those working for you. You imagine they want to be promoted too, just like you. They are not that interested. They are happy with what they are doing. They have found their groove, where they can control the stress and the wear and tear. They don’t want to upset the apple cart.

4. Everybody wants to be a manager

You had ideas, desires and aspirations to be the boss. You wanted to be in charge, to do things your way. All great, but the people working for you may be constructed in an entirely different manner. They see what a miserable time you are having as a manager. Constant pressure from above for results, the long hours, the unrelenting pace. Maybe they don’t want that for themselves.

5. Everyone wants to live up to “your expectations”

You’re the boss, so you have your standards of how things should work. You are logical and considered, so it is natural that others would agree with how you want to run the world. Well maybe not. They may disagree with the way you run things. They may have their own opinion on standards and these differ from yours.

We fool ourselves into seeing everything around us through our own prism. We extend that viewpoint to our team and believe they are in sync with us when they are not. When you look at your team members remember : people are different; they don’t want the same things out of work. They don’t all want to be promoted, not everyone wants to be a manager and they have different standards from you.