2 common mistakes leaders make and how to avoid them

As an entrepreneur, leader, manager or head honcho, you’re expected to be on top of a lot of things going on in your organization. It’s typical to be switching between different hats. Your team wants to run several things through you, and your weeks are composed of a line up of meetings, both scheduled and unscheduled. When something breaks down, you roll your sleeves up and troubleshoot.

When multiple responsibilities are resting on your shoulders, a few things tend to fall between the cracks. While some are minor mistakes that you shouldn’t beat yourself over, other issues are not easily recognizable. You think you’re doing things right until things begin to crumble. The moment you spot yourself committing these, it’s best to nip them in the bud before these result in a series of consequences that can derail you and your team from succeeding.

Here are two mistakes leaders and managers commonly make but tend to overlook:

Some leaders assume that if they’re not hearing anything from their team, then it’s businesses as usual - no problems, no roadblocks, nothing to worry about. Leaders should be aware though that silence doesn’t automatically equate to everything being A-OK.

It’s good to spend a couple of minutes checking up on your team members. A casual ‘Hey, how’s everything going?’ can encourage them to open up about a task they’re having a bit of a hard time with. Taking some time to talk to your team members communicates a level of care and concern toward them. This in return can make them feel at ease in the workplace.

Also, make sure to schedule regular team catch-ups where you and your team can give necessary updates, and where you can discuss important matters and solutions as necessary. These meetings don’t have to take an hour or so. You can conduct quick 20 to 30 minute meetings, as long as you have an agenda.

You can use tools like Google calendar, which is a very simple way to schedule and invite people to meetings. You can even adjust schedules, and the calendar will update each team member of the changes. They can then let you know if they can make it or not with a simple click of a button, which is a real time saver compared to having to compose your reply to the invite.

Failing to delegate tasks to the team is a common downfall for leaders. They either expect things to sort itself out on its own or take on the bulk of each project themselves. Habitually failing to assign tasks and responsibilities hinders your team from moving like a well-oiled machine. And when you do everything yourself, it’s only a matter of time before you’re bogged down by stress.

Several tools like Trello or Kanban boards have do lists that help you enumerate things that need to be done, plus assign it to a certain member of the team.

If you or your team is snowed under, it’s fast and easy to find help from skilled professionals on freelancing sites like Freelancer.com . Hiring a freelancer can help you with menial time-consuming tasks or even with competing projects that require technical skills. What’s convenient here is if you need an extra hand for a certain project, you know where to find one quickly.

Enjoy our weekly installment from Sebastián Siseles, the international director of Freelancer.com, the world’s largest freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace by total number of users and projects posted. View previous posts here .