Good Managers Don’t Make These Mistakes

To break unhealthy patterns of thinking and acting, managers need to pay special attention to how they communicate, collaborate and get work done.

Credit: Author

All managers make mistakes. However, some mistakes are avoidable, costly to the business, and hinder the team’s development and growth.

Most managers are so busy playing catch-up—handling unexpected issues, filling calendars with meetings, and pacifying unhappy stakeholders—that they ignore harmful practices that harm their team’s productivity and performance.

These repeated mistakes can become habits—they start creeping into everything they say and do. However, unconscious habits like these are hard to detect and even more challenging to break. Once your brain learns how things must be done, it runs on autopilot and makes most of the decisions for you.

To break unhealthy patterns of thinking and acting, managers need to pay special attention to how they communicate, collaborate and get work done. In particular, they must pay attention to these five mistakes that other good managers don’t make:

Mistake 1: Delegate, then Abdicate

“If you want to do a few small things right, do them…