5 habits of successful people leaders and how to develop those skills

Get employees involved.
Employees who interact daily with customers or tools know what works and what doesn’t. Make it easy for them to share feedback or propose solutions and celebrate successful suggestions in a public way that will encourage employees to keep bringing their ideas forward.

Encourage experimentation.
Avoid getting comfortable with the status quo by taking calculated risks and encouraging employees to do the same. Give clear direction about how and when employees can act on their own, and be forgiving of failure.

Walk the walk.
In his course on Leading Your Team Through Change, COO Mike Derezin emphasizes “walking the walk” by proactively implementing the changes you’re advocating for on a day-to-day basis.

Micromanagement
If you over-dictate how your employees should do their jobs, they’ll feel disenfranchised by their work and discouraged from speaking up about changes they could make to it.

Remaining stuck in your ways
Your employees will follow whatever example you set for them, whether it’s good or bad. If you don’t look for ways to innovate and improve in your role, your employees won’t, either.

Mandating big changes all at once
If you demand your team change their approach to their work all at once, they’ll resent the change at best. At worst, they’ll resent it and fail to incorporate it effectively.

Identify needed skills.
Evaluate ahead of time what skills and knowledge are needed to sustain your organization in the future, so that when you’re hiring you’ll home in on the right candidate faster.

Prioritize professional development.
Help employees plan their career path and empower them to get to the next step by providing professional development support. Whether it’s a structured training program or informal mentorship, every opportunity is a chance for them to grow.

Establish cross-generational and cross-departmental mentoring.
Help age-diverse teams thrive by supporting cross-generational mentoring to discover future leaders and encourage innovation.

Inherent bias
As Emilie Aries says in How to Be a Good Mentee and Mentor, “We're naturally drawn to mentoring people who look like us. This can pose a serious problem for any organization that wants to cultivate a culture of diversity and inclusion.” Try pairing mentors and mentees who share different backgrounds and experiences.

Overgeneralization
When you pair a mentor and mentee, you should be sure they have something specific to teach and learn from one another. Set up concrete goals for the mentorship and institute ways to measure progress toward these goals.

Forcing the issue
If you want the mentorships you establish to be successful, both the mentor and mentee have to want to participate. Trying to force the relationship won’t work out for anyone.

Connecting mentors and mentees across departments
When you learn that one of your team members wants to learn something, you can use your position as a leader to connect them with other employees who could teach it to them.

Providing experience-based feedback
When you offer advice to your mentees, illustrate what you mean using real examples from your career. This will help make your feedback more understandable and palatable.

Asking open questions
In Being a Good Mentor, Ellen Ensher recommends asking open questions that start with “what,” “why,” or “how” to “open up the dialogue and enable your protege to control the flow of the conversation.”

Seek second opinions.
Strengthen your ideas and initiatives by brainstorming with employees to tap into a wide range of perspectives. This ensures you account for blind spots. During these meetings, practice active listening to make your employees feel comfortable sharing.

Embrace an open communication policy.
Some employees may be less comfortable with face-to-face communication. Make sure everyone knows that they can reach out to you in other ways, such as by email.

Don’t take it personally.
As a manager, your reputation is closely tied to the performance of the organization. That can make feedback feel more personal, and harder to take. Remind yourself that it’s not about you. It’s about making the organization better.

Valuing one communication style over another
Too often, the loudest voices are the ones most heard. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to make sure all of your employees have a say in discussions that affect them.

Failing to incorporate feedback
It’s not enough to merely welcome different views; you have to use them to change. When an employee makes a suggestion, find ways to incorporate it.

Criticizing alternative views
Avoid the impulse to critique a team member's opinion in a non-constructive way when you disagree. Instead, attempt to understand where it’s coming from, and then respond in a measured fashion.

Leave assumptions at the door.
Stereotypes can cause you to overlook great talent and leave knowledge untapped. Anyone can surprise you. Never assume a candidate may be more or less qualified for a position based on their race, gender, or age.

Hire for skills, not just experience.
Hiring on the basis of previous experience tends to give the same people who have always had an easier time getting hired an advantage. By looking for the specific skills you need, rather than just the general experience, you can broaden and diversify your pool of qualified applicants.

Diversify your hiring team.
The most effective way to counteract unconscious bias is to give other perspectives a seat at the table. Strive to make your hiring team as diverse as you’d like your organization to be.

Demanding in-person interviewing or work
Differently abled candidates may have a much more challenging time working or even interviewing in-person, and may be disinclined to even apply for jobs that demand it.

Biased language in job descriptions
Have a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion specialist review all job descriptions to ensure you’re using inclusive language that won’t disenfranchise a group of potential candidates.

Offering less salary than a job is worth
According to Stacy Gordon in Diversity Hiring, “It's a mistake to offer a salary to a candidate based upon what they will accept, rather than what the job is actually worth.” This reinforces unequal pay disparities and limits diverse candidates.

Counteracting natural biases
In Foundations of DEI, Dereca Blackmon shares an exercise leaders can use to help their team confront bias: “Have your team actively look for bias. For example, you could all agree to reduce the tendency for bias towards extroverts during meetings by giving everyone the opportunity to speak without interruption.”

Diversifying your interviewers
Whenever possible, have multiple people of different positions, experience, race, gender, and sexual orientation interview a candidate before deciding whether to hire them.

Making the hiring process transparent
Communicate with your prospective hires as much as possible during the process. Make sure they know how you are evaluating them, where you are in the process, and what their salary will be if you extend the offer.