There are several challenges both leaders and employees face in the workplace daily.

The team at Leading Light Business Evolution spent the last few months carrying out research, as well as looking into global market trends, in both large and small organisations, here are the top five most common challenges we uncovered.

Diversity in the workplace

Whether it is about race, age (generation gap), sexuality or religion, many companies still struggle to get teams to accept their colleague for who they are and to work in harmony.

Not only does this create a negative culture within organisations, but it also impacts productivity.

Lack of focus on the right motivators

So Beer-Friday or the annual team build is all good and well.

However, many employees still feel their leaders are missing the mark. Employees want to be part of the decision making, have autonomy and to be trusted.

They want to understand their career path and opportunities for growth within an organisation, and most importantly, employees want to feel appreciated.

Under-equipped manager

Individuals get promoted and are expected to manage people when they have never been exposed to a management role before – this is a long-standing challenge.

Often their peers now become their subordinates.

Without the right understanding on how to lead their teams to success, emerging leaders or managers can end up either being walked over or becoming dictators in their fields.

The end result is generally the same, a drop in productivity, demotivated teams and poor results.

Lack of Emotional Intelligence

People are often categorised based on how they express their emotions.

The reality is people who do not know how to manage their behaviour in various situations and allow their emotions to control them, become victims of their emotions.

As a result, they have emotional outbursts, often alienating themselves from those around them.

It is important to note that it is not only negative emotions that impact us, but positive unmanaged emotions can also lead us to make impulsive, irrational decisions.

Weak Leadership

Unfortunately, this is widespread.

We only have to turn on the radio, watch TV or read the news to get daily reminders of the results of poor leadership.

One of the biggest challenges with leadership is getting leaders to look within to define where the problems lie.

Many leaders are driven by ego's and focus on their power and what they can gain.

If leadership is to develop we need to come from a position of serving those we lead. If leaders are not able to connect with their teams, it is almost impossible for them to drive them towards success.

If you want to increase staff motivation levels, improve your productivity and drive your business to greater success in 2020 invest in your team and leaders development now!