The reputation of your business is the biggest asset of your company; it’s the reason people are willing to buy your services, respect your better judgement, and favour you over other companies.
The quickest way to destroy the reputation you have acquired is to follow practices that are bad, wrong, or just plain stupid.
Following lousy practices will result in complaints being issued and your business being bad-mouthed.
6 Common Leadership Practices
…That Are Sooo Last Year
In the competitive business world of today, it is sometimes difficult to perceive which business practices are good and which are bad.
Here are six commonly overlooked leadership practices which could be costing you business and affecting your reputation:
1. Treating Them Mean and Keeping Them Keen
If your leadership tactic is to shudder fear in your employees by dangling their job on a string, your business morals are dire. Employees should be treated with respect and not ‘kept in line’ by the threat of unemployment.
If you continuously undermine and disgruntled employees, employees will complain and their bad word-of-mouth marketing could cost you business.
A happy employee is a great brand ambassador.
Nonetheless, if you cannot change their negative attitude towards your business, they’re not suitable employees and you should consider replacing them.
2. Only Employing ‘Yes’ Men (and Women)
If you hire people who only agree with your opinions, or punish those who disagree, you’re damaging the long-term future of your business. People whom are afraid to challenge your opinions will ignore their intuition, and decisions of operations will be overlooked or ignored.
And this could develop into something much more serious over time. Instead, you should look to hire people who want to share their opinions and who want to be apart of the company’s growth.
3. Having Noticeable Commitment Issues
If you continuously make promises that you don’t intend to commit to, or which mean nothing when you break them, you’re building yourself and your business a reputation for being unreliable. When clients or customers cannot depend on you to keep the small commitments, how will they be able to trust you when the stakes are high?
Client relationships, just like all other relationships, require input from both sides in order to flourish. When you stay true to your commitments everybody wins.
4. Not Seeing The Benefits In Paying Bills Early
Some leaders pride themselves on how slow they pay their bills and refuse to pay until they’re 90-days old despite the accumulation of reminders. These business leaders endure the least respect and client loyalty. You should aim to pay your bills within 48 hours of informant.
Your account manager may think otherwise but your reputation will instantly be improved as you receive positive publicity. Clients will grumble when you don’t pay, and sooner or later this information will get around ruining your reputation.
Pay your bills and keep on good terms with customer relationships. A good business relationships has vast benefits.
5. Always Arriving Un-Fashionably Late
Arriving late to meetings to demonstrate your importance will grate on your business partners and your credibility will be lost.
Arriving late will only show that you’re not interested in that meeting.
You must arrive early and show respect to your business partners. When you cannot arrive on time, make a phone call and declare the time you expect to arrive. If the time isn’t reasonable offer to reschedule your meeting. By doing so they’re more likely to receive the information in a positive way.
6. Delaying Phone Calls to Suit Your Timetable
If you delay returning phone calls until a time suited to yourself, you will begin to irritate clients and partners and they will ultimately look for business elsewhere. If a caller is waiting for your return for several hours, the caller will end up being frustrated and dismissive when they eventually get hold of you.
When a person has taken time from them day to call you, you should make time for them. Ask your receptionist to take a message to reduce to callers anger, or offer the caller a time you will be free to take such call.
So, what else can you add to the list of six? How can you look to the unfolding new year with new eyes that see better ways of leading people, processes, and business? I would love to hear your thoughts!
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Dawn Ellis Digital Content Manager at alldayPA
She helps engage clients with Value-Added Answering Services
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One to add to the list us not getting employee input and buy in. I realize not all decisions can be made with employee input but when possible, it can make a huge difference in how employees accept and support the decision.