3 Mistakes Managers Make

Last Updated on 12 August, 2019 by Elizabeth Harrin

It’s human to make mistakes. And we spend so much time at work that it’s normal to make a few
mistakes as part of the job.

However, no one wants to be making mistakes.

In this article I’m looking at three small-yet-mighty mistakes you might be making every day at
work. Whether you are managing small projects or a team of global experts, I’ve seen managers
of all grades make these errors time and time again. And I’ve done it too.

The good news is, they are bad habits that are relatively easy to fix.

Susanne Madsen

Susanne Madsen writes about the three mistakes that managers make in her book, The Power of
Project Leadership. I’ve taken her principles, and extended those out to what I think they mean
for managers today. Do you recognise these habits in your own practice?

Mistake #1: Managing tasks over people

How can managing tasks be a management mistake? Surely that’s your job, as a manager?

The management error comes when you focus on managing tasks at the expense of leading
people.

People get work done. Teams deliver projects. Step away from the tasks and look at the bigger
picture. It’s no good having the most detailed task plan if your team are bored or stressed.
Managing people should take up most of your time.

In my experience people who are good at managing projects and tasks are less good at managing
people. Perhaps because they don’t enjoy it as much as tweaking a project schedule. Perhaps
because they don’t think it is as important.

People have always been important but it’s even more acute now. Unhappy team members leave.
Or worse, they stay and are disruptive and share their bad mood with everyone else.

How to fix it

Fix it by mentally allocating time in the day to leadership tasks like:

 Communicating
 Meeting people in person

This document has been classified as CONFIDENTIAL-EXTERNAL by Centenary Bank.

  Checking in with people on the phone
 Setting goals
 Clarifying the vision and objectives for your projects (over and over again).

To move to this way of thinking we have to ditch the view that leadership and management are
different. OK, they are different, but you can’t compartmentalise them in real life. They are only
different when you’re reading or studying about them.

In my day-to-day work I don’t ‘switch’ between being a leader and being a manager. I do them
both. All the time. Whether I’m leading or managing is not a conscious choice, it’s a function of
my job.

Mistake #2: Being reactive

I’m reactive. I deal with emails as they come in. It can be quite a stressful way to work. I’d love
to have more time to be proactive but hey, it takes time to get organised enough to be proactive
and time is something I don’t have much of.

And I know that attitude is wrong.

When we focus on what’s urgent we stop focusing on what’s important. Urgent things take up
brain power that would be better used on other tasks such as getting ahead for next week or
planning for that project meeting.

You can be proactive. You can look at what might stop you achieving your goals, deal with those
risks and look forward at supporting your team.

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Strategic planning cycles force us to do this, but you probably only bother to go into the details
of that once a year, or when a new project needs to be prioritised against the existing portfolio.

How to fix it

Think now about the one thing you could do to deal proactively with something you know is
going to happen on one of your projects. That could be:

 Reviewing your plans and updating them

 Putting your risk management plans into action
 Contacting your stakeholders to let them know what’s coming up
 Preparing a communications plan
 Organising a team celebration for when the project is over.

Or anything else that makes you feel calm and collected inside (that doesn’t include wine and
chocolate).

This document has been classified as CONFIDENTIAL-EXTERNAL by Centenary Bank.

 Related: How To Prepare For Next Week

Mistake #3: Believing that we have to know it all

I know a lot of things. For example, I knew that envelope-neck baby gros are designed to be
taken off downwards as well as over the head – and I’m proud to say I knew that before the
revelation did the rounds on the internet a while ago.

But I didn’t know how to fold a nappy in on itself when you throw it away before another mother
showed me.

I don’t do either of those things at work, but the point is that you can’t know it all. As a parent or
as a manager. There isn’t enough space in your head for everything. Besides, we have the
internet and our colleagues and books for the things we don’t know.

The important thing is to know where you can go or who you can ask for the information. Then
you have access to knowing it all.

How to fix it

Stop trying to prove that you know how to fix problems and do all the tasks. Use your experts to
fill the gaps in your knowledge and accept that they know how to do it far better than you ever
will.

Manage consciously
These three managment mistakes can be career-limiting.

However, it’s often not the mistake itself that causes the problem, but our reaction to it. You do
something you’re not proud of. It eats you up inside and you worry about it for a while.

Stop.

Management mistakes happen to everyone. Practise putting aside how you feel about the mistake
and getting on with learning the lesson so you don’t make the same errors again.

People with good interpersonal and leadership skills get promoted. Good project and task
managers stay doing what they are good at (and if that’s what you want to do in life, then that’s
fine – we need managers like you too!).

People with good interpersonal and leadership skills get promoted. Click To Tweet

Start shifting the way you relate to your team and ditch these unproductive habits.

This document has been classified as CONFIDENTIAL-EXTERNAL by Centenary Bank.