There is so much more to being a leader than having the fancy high-ranking title and then being in charge of a group of people. Yes you have the authority to say to people what to do, but if you are ineffective as a leader, you will find it almost impossible to motivate and guide your staff.
Here are 5 things that you can do today to become a better leader:
1. Communicate and Connect
To be the leader in the work place, there needs to be a mutual sense of understanding and trust between the leader and the staff. The initial action toward that goal should be that leaders understand to connect by the use of purpose, positivity, compassion, empathy, humility and, of course, let us never forget love. These key qualities will put you on the path to real connections with the members of your team.
When you build a genuine personal connection with your team, you must develop the shared trust that is vital in building a firm culture of exceptional performance and accountability. With this culture set, the group can achieve all its goals, create success and make the team and leader both happy and fulfilled.
2. Understand Your Team
When you have honed the art of connecting and communicating with the team, then you can really get to know them, what they are, who they are, their interests and what their good and bad points and skills are. Remember, all of these must be genuine as, if they are faked, your team will feel and know this, and thereby ruining all the good work that you could do or have done. So be real: in other words, real with your team and with you connecting to them as individuals so that they know and understand that YOU do care about them genuinely.
YES! You have to know your vision and mission, yet it is just as important if not more so to know your people. If you take care and care about your team, they will care and take care of the vision and the mission.
So, a good leader knows their team better than anyone else — their strong points and how they can be used, as well as their weaknesses and genuinely cares about them, takes the time to understand and pays attention to the small things as well as the large things.
3. Encourage Their Creativity
The staff has to be allowed certain freedom to explore and to brainstorm so that they can do their best work.
You as a good leader have to be open to your team’s suggestions and ideas and be prepared to consider them, and if they are good, develop them further. A good leader must also give his or her team fresh challenges, to stop complacency and boredom and show them your trust and their potential.
4. Be Straightforward
Being direct and giving truthful feedback, even if it might be criticism, is the most rewarding way to guide your team in the right direction. You as a leader must know in which direction you want to go so you can give the right advice to your team.
If you fail in being direct, people will not know what you really think about them and their work, causing them to lack confidence, and thereby, they will never improve or reach their full potential. Yet if you as a leader do not know the exact direction that your company is heading, it doesn’t matter how much you have communicated to your staff in relation to their performance – they will fail when it comes the moment for them to make decisions or take action.
It is vital that constructive feedback is shared, no matter if it is the team as a whole or an individual. But remember that positive is as important as negative feedback and a good leader tries for a good balance.
5. Ask For Feedback
Remember also that it isn’t just team members who can benefit from truthful feedback. True self assessment of your leadership can be hard, so it is important that a mentor or your own team is very valuable in measuring your own performance. In fact, talking to friends or your peers can very often bring a fresh perspective on your style and approach.