Uncommon Mistakes in Leadership and Management
Success in every business depends on how well the top management is able to make better decisions which brings competitive advantages over other players in the industry.
A single mistake in the leadership or management decision could cost the company millions of dollars, yet it could easily be avoided.
Much of today's online writing talks more on theoretical perspective of management and common mistakes in Leadership and Management, however, this article will give a detail which focuses much on practical uncommon mistakes which majority of films are facing because of errors or poor decisions make by managers and those in leading positions.
5 uncommon Mistakes in Leadership and Management
The following are some uncommon mistakes which are committed everyday and are costing films or organization millions of dollars. Some of the mistakes could easily be avoided, but some of them are considered inevitable.
1. Recruiting a person based on qualification only, not incorporating personal behaviour
The first serious mistake which is considered inevitable, but is being committed almost each and every seconds by managers and those in leading positions is recruiting a person based on qualification only.
You might be wondering as why recruiting a person based on qualification only is considered as a serious mistake? Well, the main point here is that recruiting a person based on qualification does not consider his/her personal behaviour which plays a very important role when it comes to work performances which could have a direct impact on a company's success. Some individuals are highly educated, but are very negligent when it comes to working or completing the task which they might be assigned. Similarly, some individuals are highly educated, but yet they are thieves and could bring down the profit of your organization within seconds.
In addition, some individuals are very good with good records when it comes to old job performances and their behaviours too, but when they are exposed to millions of dollars while they are alone, they could easily be tempted and steal. Much as this is the case, very few companies are able to track the behaviour of a person before a recruitment is done which could act as the best way of dealing with this problem.
You might be wondering as well as to how a human resource manager for example, could easily track the past behaviour of a person before he/she recruits him? An answer here could be that he/she could easily pay a visit to his/her old high school or college to verify the individual's behaviour before a recruitment process is completed, however, this could cost an organization thousands of dollars or even millions in a situation where more workers are needed.
2. Recruiting a person based on friendship or relationship
Recruiting a person based on friendship or relationship is a mistake which is being done each and every day.
A recruiting manager might for example come across an application letter of his or her relative who has a similar qualification, but does not have the required experience which such position is requesting, but because your friend or relative has a similar qualification, he or she might be tempted to recruit him/her.
Once recruited, because the recruited person may not have the required experience, he or she might fail to perform based on the expectations.
Similarly, the recruited person might fail to obey dutiful orders from you because the recruited person is your close friend or relative, and this could easily bring down the profit of your organization within short time as the system could switch from being efficient when it comes to work performances, to a system, which will not consider efficiency as a way to go for profit maximization of your organization.
3. Failure to set and disclose the mandatory minimum daily target
Another mistake which is committed on a daily basis by a few firms is failing to set a minimum daily target which acts as mandatory. As of today some organizations even the leading others are still recruiting some individuals without telling them their minimum daily target which they should comply with.
An example here could be giving a sales manager or a distribution manager an amount which he or should achieve on a daily basis for the efficiency of your entity, this helps to force the manager or any recruited person to be able to comply with this at the same time accelerating the overall profit of your organization.
It should be noted here that setting a minimum daily target might not work when a person is being recruited on a commission basis whose weekly or fortnightly payment is depending on his contribution to your firm, in this case the person might have more freedom and you as a manager might have little control over him, compared to a situation where the person would get employed on a permanent basis.
4. Recruiting a person with similar work experience
The fourth mistake which is done on a daily basis is recruiting a person based on a similar experience not based on exact experience.
You might be wondering as to how or why is this considered as a mistake, let's take a situation whereby a human resource manager wants to recruit a sales agent who will be assigned selling gas stoves and has recruited a person who has 10 years experience in airtime credit selling.
The target market or market segmentation for gas stoves could not be the same with the one of the airtime credit selling, which means the marketing approach in gas stove selling could not be exact with the one on airtime credit selling.
Similarly, sometimes a recruiting manager could write for example, that the person who is to apply should have at least 5 years experience in farming without necessarily specifying which type of farming.
An example here could be a person who has over 5 years in maize production is considered to have 5 years experience in farming, now assuming the recruiting manager is interested in recruiting a person to be assigned in rice field and has just wrote that the person should have 5 years of farming experience, in this case, the person who has experience in maize or in poultry farming could all apply as they all qualify but these individuals, will not necessarily have the required experience in rice production.
Much as this is the case, this mistake is being committed everyday, unfortunately it cannot be avoided as recruiting a person in exact field is not easy or could be more costly.
5. Underpayments
The last mistake which is committed on a daily basis by managers or those with higher positions is giving some individuals a few dollars which does not match with their work performances, often this result in a recruited person starting developing strange behaviours such as stealing or lacking any motivation when it comes to working, which in turn result in low efficiencies which could bring the profit of your company down.
This mistake is not committed by each and everyone organization, but as of today we still have some organizations which underpay it's employees despite government of each country setting a minimum wage or salary which is deemed fair.
In conclusion, this article has taken a look at the 5 uncommon leadership and management mistakes, which are committed everyday, costing millions of dollars. Among others, the article has given more details on recruiting a person based on qualification only, recruiting a person based on friendship and similar work experience as some of the uncommon mistakes leadership and management. The article has also pointed that, some mistakes could be avoided, while some could not.