You’ve worked your way up the corporate ladder, becoming a member of the sought-after management team.
All that go-getting to the top and onward and upward attitude is wonderful—until you get there. Then what? Remaining at the top and keeping each day fresh and exciting sometimes is harder than the act of getting there.
Leaders and the companies that they are helming tend to get complacent, according to Forbes.com, and many stop taking initiative and lose the competitive spirit. Just as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is the “ultimate disrupter,” great leaders must inspire hope, not fear and constantly reinvent themselves. We are in a time of consistent change, so leaders must ebb and flow along with the changes in their industry.
Forbes outlines eight key traps that successful management avoid at all costs to keep the entrepreneurial drive alive:
- overlooking or ignoring potential problems
- managing tactics versus leading growth and improvements
- allowing employees to become complacent; they stop selling change
- ineffective use of resources
- mismanagement of corporate culture
- ignoring development of talent
- losing passion for the mission
A loss of passion is slippery slope, and once your people see that you’re not living up to what you promised in the beginning, that attitude will filter down the pipeline.
Always remember to shake things up. Change is sometimes difficult to achieve, but well worth the effort. Your company, your people and your former self will thank you in the end.
