A great leader once said "Leadership should be more participative than directive, more enabling than performing." This statement summarizes both the traits most often found in a good leader, and the mistakes many poor leaders make. A leader should guide her followers while still allowing them to take the initiative and do work themselves. One of the most important traits in a leader is trust in those with whom she is working. Too often, leaders do not put faith in their followers, and therefore are unable to delegate work. This leads to several mistakes because of a lack of faith, both in others and in oneself. They include micromanaging, not giving credit where credit is due, an inability to meet deadlines due to work load, and no training for future leaders.

One common mistakes made by leaders in all areas of society is micromanaging. When micromanaging, a leader will oversee and control every decision made while completing a task. This leaves little opportunity for followers to complete work or make decisions on their own so that they work slower, do not learn how to make decisions, and do not develop the ability to think creatively. Ralph Nader said, "I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers." When employing the system of micromanaging, however, it is difficult to produce leaders because no follower is allowed the opportunity to make decisions on their own. Although it is necessary for leaders to give some guidance to followers, too much managing leads to a lack of growth of the followers.

Once the problem of micromanaging is solved there still remains leaders who delegate work to others, then take credit for that work. Andrew Carnegie the industrialist, once said, "No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it." I believe one of the most important qualities of a good leader is one who will give credit where credit is due. Too often however, a leader will take credit for the work of others as well as himself. These are the people who are not confident in themselves or in the fact that their leadership abilities are reflected in the ability of their workers to complete a project or task. Also, sometimes when a leader takes credit for the work of another, it is because he believes the work he himself has done to be inadequate. No matter the motivation for taking credit for the work of another, it is a poor leadership decision because it leads to resentment and a lack of respect from one's followers.

Examples of both good and bad leadership extend into everyday life. When a leader sets a bad example, that mistake is often perpetuated in the leadership style of his followers, when they enter a leadership position and replicate the bad example of leadership that they learned. Some of these leadership mistakes can be remedied by simply placing more trust in the capabilities of followers while others must be changed through a conscious effort. Either way, a leader must learn that their actions and mistakes affect their followers and may affect future leaders.