Leadership may sound straightforward, but the responsibility associated with it is overwhelming. Do you want to be a good leader? Or have you been entrusted with a leadership role at your workplace? Then, first, you need to know what makes an effective leader.
The efficacy of a good leader relies on several key factors that we are going to speculate on in this article. But before heading towards that, let us know the definition of leadership skills, and why are they important in the workplace?
WHAT ARE LEADERSHIP SKILLS?
Leadership skills are the qualities and characteristics that people display to supervise procedures, lead projects, and motivate their workers towards achieving targets. Leadership is not a single entity, it constitutes a gamut of skills that interface together to move towards a shared goal.
Valuable leadership qualities include the ability to fruitfully delegate, encourage, and collaborate. Honesty, trust, dedication, and imagination are other leadership qualities.
WHY ARE LEADERSHIP SKILLS IMPORTANT?
For any organization, effective leaders are vital. They will help create effective teams within an organization to ensure the productive execution of programs, campaigns, or other core competencies. Although a leader’s abilities include many organizational and communication skills, everyone can practice their leadership abilities and hone them.
The effects of both efficient and inefficient leaders on the job have been witnessed by most individuals. Good leaders improve staff participation, foster a healthy atmosphere, and help their team eliminate constraints.
With their own jobs, good leadership is often infectious, encouraging peers to apply constructive leadership qualities.
WHAT ARE THE ATTRIBUTES OF AN EFFECTIVE LEADER?
RAISING RELATIONSHIPS
Leadership calls for the management of a team to work towards a common goal. Therefore, an effective leader must raise good relationships among the team members.
How can you spur a feeling of coherence? As a team lead, to stimulate a camaraderie for tasks, employees have to bond personally. For that, you can organize a team lunch, potluck, or a sports activity in the after-hours. This will encourage the team members to know each other well and develop camaraderie.
DELEGATION
Delegation is an integral aspect of good leadership. As a chief, delegation does not involve dissipating your work so that you can have less brunt. Efficient delegation implies that you make provisions to advance the leadership capabilities of certain people who have the zeal to become potential leaders.
Delegating tasks means you trust the team pals to do better than what is required of them. More significantly, since it helps you to concentrate on more urgent issues, delegation is one of the most critical leadership competencies. You are fundamentally mentoring the teammates by delegation. When they perform activities above their pay grade, it is a kind of informal management skills training.
COMMUNICATION
Excellent communication is innate to leadership, or you can say they both go hand-in-hand. An effective leader is one who knows how to assert an unambiguous clear-sighted message. With the power of words, he can reinforce as well as make statements clear.
Being a good orator, you should be able to motivate the teammates beyond their abilities and facilitate them to realize their true potential. If you believe me; it is not as easy as it sounds. And as communication is a two-way process, you have to give voice to the thoughts and ideas of other people as well. That is your responsibility too!
DECISIVENESS
You may delegate tasks to the individuals, but the decision-making stays in your palm only. As a leader, you are the one who is accountable for the choices that the team makes. And most importantly, the teammates look up to you, whenever they hit a cul-de-sac. Opening new doors are at your discretion.
An effective leader takes into mind the entire ante before making a shout out to any momentous decision. The drive to decision-making is not hinged upon guts, but clear facts and figures. Moreover, a competent leader takes full responsibility for the decisions that he takes.
PROBLEM-SOLVING
For fresher or associates, the leader is the go-to person whenever a major crisis arises. And you being the leader cannot panic as it would drop havoc on the team. Narrowing down their problems, you have to trail the path to sensible solutions.
In the backdrop of a massive problem, you have to critically observe, analyze, and synthesize the data to cognitively look for an ingenious solution.
TIME-MANAGEMENT
The fast-paced world is moving even faster in the competitive corporate world. Take time casually, and you have piled up workloads that can be enough to crush your brain. Would you want it? A big NO!
Therefore, practicing prudent time-management skills is beyond doubt for an effective leader. With the goals and objectives in-hand, strategize, and roll out a time-effective plan. Don’t forget time holds monetary value in unprecedented times, hence use it efficiently.
INSTANT FEEDBACK
Feedback eludes the chances of errors and at the same time encourages the employees to work harder. Whatever work the employees are doing- they expect feedback from their leader. Be it an appreciation, recognition, or even a rebuking.
The correct form of feedback makes the employees feel more motivated and enhances engagement in the work process. More than feedback, what remarks formidable feedback is the timing? Provided the feedback a week after the task completion would negate the efficacy, yet an instantaneous response would work wonders.
ORGANIZATION
The key component of an effective leader is management and organization. Organizational leadership entails setting targets, preparing implementation, seeing to the execution, and evaluating the results to find points of progress. That also means getting back to the drawing board and setting new priorities.
Haphazard management can often turn into haphazard outcomes that definitely wouldn’t impress the higher authorities. To be precise, a manager should be well-acquainted with the backgrounds and abilities of the employees. On the basis of that tasks should be assigned.
Further, the project should be balanced out in an equitable manner where none of the employees complains about the excessive burden. The better the organization, the better will be the results.
INTEGRITY
Integrity is a fundamental attribute that must be possessed by any leader. If you lack honesty, you can’t effectively run any company. Self-development author Brian Tracy says that the first principle any executive agrees on his honesty while he has a strategic business conference.
Company leaders recognize that integrity is the backbone of effective leadership, and their values must be defended. A good leader inspires with his ideals without cheating, regardless of how challenging a situation is; they keep from making false statements or taking shortcuts, preferring thoughts and action over personal benefits. Indeed to deliver promises ethically and morally is the solid ground for thriving leadership.
CONFIDENCE
How can you even consider yourself an effective leader without confidence? Self-confidence forms the heart of an effective leader. The one who believes in himself can only entreat others to believe in themselves.
Once you are confident of your competence and leadership, then only you can envision making a difference with your lead. Self-confidence and self-esteem give you the wings to think high for success. If you are positive and faithful, then only you will be able to march forward and overcome challenges in the long run.
A great leader is not born but polished over time. All the above-listed attributes aren’t necessarily in the core of a good leader. Yet, furbishing yourself and training yourself in all these skills can emblazon you as a great leader. There are various methods to valorise your leadership skills. It is a consistent process that demands self-conviction.
I hope you have gained useful insights from this article. Following this will lead you to consistent and sustainable growth as a leader.
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