Not everyone is comfortable with exercising leadership authority. In fact, some leaders fear their employees’ reactions to expectations and direction so much that they give them the authority to make decisions prematurely. There is a growing trend in organizations to manage to feelings rather than objectives resulting in a decline in productivity, quality, and alignment of effort to organizational goals.  

Leaders have become permissive, allowing employees to waste valuable time trying to figure things out for themselves so they don’t appear to be a micromanager. No one wins when leaders don’t approach leadership with desire to lead, not befriend their people. An over concern with employees liking them and not triggering defensive reactions leaves them disempowered and failing to thrive.  

To be an effective leader, you must be able to separate feelings from issues, give clear expectations, course correct, and delegate tasks to your direct reports. Allowing upward delegation from employees who complain about workload only increases the amount of stress and work for leaders. And when leaders let knee-jerk reactions dictate their responses to issues, it can turn a minor issue into a long-lasting difficult situation for everyone. 

Our conversation with Cathleen Merkel on The Legendary Leaders Podcast is a must listen for anyone who wants to learn how to harness their leadership authority, effectively develop their employees, and understand the importance of fulfilling one’s own needs as a leader. 

We talk about the importance of emotional intelligence and how to self-manage as a leader. We give insight from our client experiences to help leaders stop being permissive and recognize when they are giving their power away. Our discussion about the challenges of leading entitled employees offers insight into how to avoid some of the pitfalls that come with this mindset. These are only a few of the areas of leading with authority we talked about. 

Our chat with Cathleen was full of gems that you can’t afford to miss! If you want to learn more about The Legendary Leaders Podcast, check out the episode here.