There are the standard lessons in every leadership book out there, but here are five surprising lessons that merit consideration:
1. You can learn as much (if not more) from bad leaders as good ones. Everyone reads the stories of successful leaders and uses them as their blueprint, but the majority of leaders are not good, so the odds of you being a less-than-stellar leader are about equal to that. For this reason, you need to learn not just the how-to's but also the not-how-to's, and bad leaders provide the best lessons here (a lesson from Dr. Teresa Ray).
2. Information can be corrected, but feelings can't. Explaining the reasoning behind a decision using data, charts, tables, etc. can help create buy-in and commitment. But embarrassing or unknowingly being negative to a report in front of their peers is something they will never forget. Spend twice as much time thinking about how employees will feel than you do about facts and logic. Correcting a data mistake is easy; overcoming the damage you cause to an employee's self-esteem? Far less so (a lesson from Jeff Haden)
3. Hire people better/smarter/more talented than you. Sure, leaders are all taught to hire good and talented people, but set your ego aside and hire others who are definitely smarter, more capable, and more talented than you are. Anything less limits the growth of your organization to, well, just you, and that is the very definition of a limiting belief (a lesson from Steve Ressler).
4. Keep pushing on "Why?" Leaders often do not question themselves or business processes. This is because of our own (often unwitting) indoctrination as to how business and people should function instead of asking why they function that way. Asking "Why?" will uncover a lot of assumptions and faulty mechanics that were just allowed to be the way they were, with negligible benefits (a lesson from Cameron Madill).
5. Focus on the "What" not the "How." Too many leaders assume that they must lay out the course of action to achieve all goals and ultimatums -- not just unnecessary but also damaging. How something is achieved should be left (with some guidance, if needed) to the individuals tasked, otherwise you just bog people down in process (a process you created so they'll also be less emboldened to question). Give people the what that needs to be achieved and listen and follow their leads for how it should be (a lesson from Molly Graham).
You probably have some counter-intuitive lessons of your own?
