by B.J. Tyrrell

Created on: August 07, 2011   Last Updated: August 09, 2011

Thinking about what leadership means may help you to avoid five common traps of leadership.  For the purpose of this article here, it is enough to say that: Leadership is the process by which an individual gets a group to focus on and move toward a common goal for the benefit and cohesiveness of the group or the larger group to whom the members of the group belong or are associated with.  That being said, let’s get into five common traps of leadership and how to avoid them.

1 : The need to constantly remind everyone you are the leader

You may have earned the leadership position through hard work, talent, experience and skills, but remember leadership serves no purpose if it is about the leader and not about the group and its focus.  Why lead from a position of legitimate power? If you find you are constantly reminding people you are the leader to remain in charge than you are lacking in your direction of the group and you are an obstacle to its progress. Group members are less likely to share their ideas with you when their ideas are not in line with your own if this is your attitude and will feel as if any suggestions they make will be used by you to benefit your position. i.e. ‘Look how well I did leading this group bring on my next assignment, reward or promotion.’. Maintain your leadership status and role with effective communication skills, sharing what you have learned and allowing others to share what they have learned, building trust with the group members and listening to their ideas and you will remain the leader by referent power.

2  : Lacking in innovation

So you have been doing x for y amount of time and it has worked for you. Why should you change your methods now? Staying on top of the latest research and developments and being willing to incorporate new ways of doing things into your current repertoire will not only leave you with a new bag of tricks when things are not going as planned but will gain you respect among your followers as well as make your followers more open to new ideas and change. After all, they are being led by you so lead by example. Change is a constant and old ways of doing business just may not work in the new economy. People are finding themselves doing more for less in these current economic times and if your methods of getting things done in a leadership role have incorporated a directive style then maybe a new style which fosters communication and a sense of accomplishment in the

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