LEADERS SHOULD AVOID EIGHT MISTAKES

By : NANCY LAI

KOTA KINABALU: Leaders should avoid committing eight mistakes in order to be successful, said Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun at the Leaders Conference organised by Yayasan Sabah yesterday.

Delivering a keynote address at the conference titled, ‘Leading from within – Leveraging lessons to meet future challenges’, Masidi said one of the mistakes that leaders should refrain from making is avoiding personal responsibility.

The person wants the perks as a leader but not the responsibility, he said, adding that a leader must have responsibility to himself or herself as well as to others.

“You must lead yourself before leading others … you must walk the talk,” Masidi said.

Another mistake leaders commit is that they do not build a leadership team but build followers instead and these people will not be able to complement the leader’s skill or duties, he said.

Leaders must also not possess a limiting attitude, be of negative thinking, be unwilling to change and be purely selfish, he stressed.

He also believed that treating everyone the same is a mistake that must be avoided because people are different and so are their work styles.

“Love them equally but reward them according to their productivity at work,” he said, adding that it is also a mistake to babysit trouble makers in an establishment.

Leaders must not focus too much on problems as it can cause them to lose focus on the objectives of the organization if they do that, he opined before stressing that the role of leaders is to build and maintain momentum of an establishment.

Managers deal with problems and leaders deal with momentum which in turn takes care of problems, Masidi said.

“Then there is the mistake of desiring to please everyone. Remember, it is better to do what is right and not what is popular,” he said.

“Leaders must also set a standard for their team and ensure that they live, touch and show love for the standard.

“Failure to train people through continued education and systematic, comprehensive, reasonable as well as inductive training should be avoided, as well as tolerating poor performances,” he said. (BP)