11 Things Project Managers & Leaders Should Never Do

If you are a supervisor, project manager or a leader, you should NEVER –

• Detach yourself from the business acumen required to manage and lead. Anyone who calls himself “manager/leader” without knowing the business side of work is living in a fantasy land.
• Give ambiguous work instructions. It kills productivity and leads to re-work. Take more time to think, if needed. “Some delay” now is better than “lot of re-work” later.
• Bad mouth your organization in front of your team. Sure, there are things about your company that you don’t like much. Go, talk to people who matter. Team members get terribly demotivated when they hear their boss bad mouthing the organization.
• Bad mouth a team member in front of other team members. It is a matter of pure common-sense.
• Sugar-coat problems and hold back the information. Call spade a spade when it is needed. Problems have a bad habit of showing up sometime or the other. When they do, you loose respect because you did not communicate the enormity/magnitude of the problem upfront.
• Just hear what your people have to say. Listen. Actively listen.
• Talk constantly about problems, issues and delays. People are smart enough to gauge “who you are” by the “words you use”. Spread the good news and celebrate small successes.
• Under estimate the power of non-verbal communication. Smart managers/leaders pick up some vital clues about team members from their non-verbal communication.
• Manage by inducing fear. Thats dictatorial behavior. People grow only when they are “coached”, “counseled” and “enabled”. With fear, they will do everything dispassionately.
• Use “You” versus “I” language. You are tearing the fabric of your team apart. Foster support and be there when they need you.
• Under estimate the power of setting right examples. People observe and emulate your behavior. Model right behaviors.

Most project managers and business leaders know these but they lack discipline to follow these simple rules consistently. Great Leaders are no super humans. They are average people who focus like a laser beam and follow simple rules consistently.

Having the fundamental thumb-rules right and following them consistently is the first solid step to success as a manager/leader.