Like any other ability, leadership is something that can be acquired and developed; not everyone is born with it. It is critical to understand that a leader’s performance is also influenced by the degree of support and influence they get from their team members.
Read More: Michael Amin
Never believe that simply because you are in a leadership position, the people you work with will instantly follow your lead and appreciate your judgments. Since they recruited you, your direct supervisor already has your back. You must get the support of your teammates, direct reports, and peers.
Here are 7 leadership skills, traits, and characteristics you may embrace, whether you’re wanting to advance in your profession or are moving up from an individual contributor job into a leadership one.
1. Express gratitude, acknowledge, and offer credit
Prominent leaders show gratitude and appreciate their team members’ accomplishments in public. pleasant comments and expressing gratitude for team members’ efforts support the development of a pleasant work environment.
Employees must believe they are headed in the right direction and that their efforts will be recognized in order to motivate them to perform to the best of their abilities. Look for methods to recognize and honor your team’s accomplishments, even if it’s only with a “well done.”
Proceed with deliberateness and consistency. Praise for little things and praise all the time might come off as fake and even demotivate people.
2. Listening intently
The late Steve Jobs claimed to have returned to Apple a more humbled and capable leader after leaving in 1985; former Apple CEO John Scully attributed a large portion of this to Jobs’ improved listening skills.
It’s important to establish ground rules and introduce new methods for handling different job processes, but it’s just as important to sit back and listen to your team. To make wise judgments, a competent leader must be aware of what is happening with both their team and the business.
Being an effective communicator means being a great leader, and effective communicators pay attention. Proactive and perceptive listeners make for good leaders. Maintaining eye contact, never interrupting, and using nonverbal clues like nodding to demonstrate that you are truly listening are all necessary for being an active listener. Workers desire to be heard, not patronized or worse, ignored.
3. Use effective communication
Effective leadership requires the ability to communicate intelligibly, succinctly, and diplomatically. There is more to communication than merely listening intently to other people and reacting correctly.
It also entails exchanging insightful knowledge, posing thoughtful queries, requesting feedback and original ideas, clearing up misconceptions, and being explicit about your goals. The most effective leaders also use communication to energize, encourage, and instill confidence in their team members.
4. Exhibit dedication
Nobody enjoys working on a noncommittal team or for a noncommittal leader. As a leader, you have the power to cultivate the kind of team spirit that sets a superior team apart from a mediocre one. The trust of their team is more likely to be won by a dedicated leader. Crucially, demonstrating dedication keeps team spirit strong.
5. Accept failure
Failure is a necessary component of success, and successful leaders embrace it as a chance for personal development. Understanding your times of failure, whether they are personal setbacks or team challenges, is beneficial because it inspires your group to grow and develop.
By expressing your growth from every experience and openly admitting your mistakes, you may inspire your team to accept failure.
6. Invest in the future of your group.
Employees need a clear plan for professional advancement. A competent leader plans their direct reports’ development pathways within the organization and gives them opportunity to take on leadership roles. Leaders should make an investment in their team by providing opportunity for growth, respect, and recognition for excellent performance.
Providing team members with chances for low-risk, entry-level leadership empowers them and gives them a stress-free environment in which to practice leadership. Set high standards for them, support their creativity, and demand innovation from them. Give your team liberty and power to determine how the task is completed, along with defined goals and deadlines.
These possibilities may be as straightforward as facilitating a meeting or organizing team-building exercises, which can significantly boost your team’s confidence. You may also provide them with comments on their leadership talents through these exercises.
7. Take an empathic stance
Empathy is a difficult trait to measure. Being empathic means having the ability to observe and comprehend events from the perspectives of employees with varying levels of seniority within the organization, and to understand how their actions affect everyone else in the organization. It also implies that the leader is able to see beyond in order to motivate staff members at all levels using techniques that inspire, encourage, and uplift them.
The COVID-19 epidemic brought to light the need of empathy in an organizational setting. It demonstrated how fostering honest and open communication between managers and their subordinates had a direct influence on workplace culture and emphasized the need of compassionate leadership. When a leader demonstrates compassion, the workplace becomes psychologically secure and staff members feel comfortable broaching sensitive subjects.
