8 Ways Your Weak Leadership is Stressing Out Your Employees - and How to Fix It
You can be more Calm, Confident and Clear with your team
You have a direct effect on your employees’ stress and anxiety levels. What you say, feel, and do hugely influences your employees’ physical and emotional well-being.
Sadly, you’re probably not aware of how you’re stressing everyone out -- which means there may be a gap between your actual leadership skills and truly effective leadership.
Emotions are contagious. If you lack emotional intelligence – it’s stressful for your employees.
How calm, confident snd clear are you with your team?
Get ready for some light bulb “a-ha” moments as you consider these traits of weak leadership.
As you read through this list, be kind to yourself as changing things up can be simple for you — and and you can boost your leadership skills quickly.
Here are 8 ways your weak leadership is stressing out your employees –
You, you, you – everything is about you. You expect others to think like you, feel what you feel and look at the world like you look at it. Try showing acceptance and tolerance for different ways of thinking and feeling. You can also show humility – letting others share the spotlight and energy. Effectively leading means bringing out the best in others — and focusing more on your employee’s needs will allow them to grow and develop.
You don’t know how to listen. Everyone likes to be heard and have a safe space to share their thoughts and feelings. Maybe for you – listening is just waiting for your turn to talk. Effective leaders can master the skill of active listening as an initial response and stop their internal thinking to be able to take the other’s perspective. Can you listen with acceptance – and without judgment or suggestion?
You’re not self aware. To continue to have leadership “blind spots” and “gaps” in your leadership awareness and understanding is causing your employees stress. Developing a “growth mindset” means a deeper and authentic understanding of who you are, how you react in different situations and the impact of your words and behaviors on others. Becoming more attuned to your emotional reactions — and thinking patterns and habits — will make you a stronger leader.
You lack empathy and compassion. By discounting and invalidating the feelings of others, you create tension and make others feel emotionally unsafe. Showing empathy means you need to be able to be vulnerable and be able to connect with someone else’s feelings. You need to learn to “pause” your own internal dialog – pausing judgment on what you’re hearing – to be able to empathize with the emotion of others. Then you can show compassion – changing your response to others based on this deeper emotional understanding.
Your self-leadership is inconsistent or unhealthy. What example are you setting for your employees? Are you consistently following established rules and processes or do you have a separate set of rules for yourself? Are you as focused on your self leadership (self awareness, emotional control, authenticity, motivation, inspiration, gratitude) as you are on managing the culture of your business?
You’re not very authentic or transparent. Are you able to be vulnerable around your employees? You need to work on being comfortable showing your real self. And step down from your pedestal. The more you model the leader who’s ready to roll up their sleeves and get down “in the weeds” with your employees, the more they will feel safe and trust you. Powerful leaders can master showing vulnerability and humility as strengths.
You reject feedback. Maybe you don’t understand the value of the direct and indirect feedback you receive. When your employees feel that their feedback is not being heard, valued or respected – essentially not having a voice in your employees culture and processes – they will feel different levels of stress. By being able to receive feedback and hear it as coaching – rather than criticism – you will be able to grow into a more effective leader.
You’re inflexible and fear change. Not being able to react to changing markets, working conditions, stress levels and more can cause people to feel confused and less confident in their goals and outcomes. Your employees will not feel comfortable presenting new ideas or perspectives if they perceive you as inflexible. And fear-based responses to unexpected changes will spread the fear to members of your employees like wildfire.
Now with new awareness, you can be intentional about impacting change — in your outlook and attitude, as well as your emotional intelligence and communication.
You can Train Your Brain to quickly grow into a more powerful and effective leader that will boost your ability to support, inspire and motivate your employees.
Ready to achieve more than you ever imagined in 2023? You can Train Your Brain to Make 2023 Your Best Year Ever
Here are a list of my FREE Leadership E-books — <click to download>
The Winning Mindset Formula ACTION PLAN Training Guide
Level Up Your Leadership and Become a Kick-Ass Leader
Unlock Your Full Potential PowerPack