Being in a position of leadership can seem very exciting at first – think of all the power you have right at your fingertips! But along with power comes great responsibility, responsibility which can quickly seem overwhelming. By taking the time to learn about traits of effective and fair leaders, you will be doing your company a great service.
Live the vision of your team. Create a mission statement that helps all employees understand your vision for the company. Make sure your team gets an idea of what the bigger picture is about so they can feel good about their accomplishments. This is a great way to provide direction and build strong relationships with employees.
When you’re a leader, you’ll need to be accountable. If you make a mistake, admit it and move on. It can be easy to push the blame onto other people, but this should really be avoided. If you’re accountable when you’ve made a mistake, the people around you will feel the need to be more accountable if they’ve made a mistake.
Never belittle your coworkers. Your subordinates will never respect you if you do not treat them with respect. Remember that you are not better than they are. Consider yourself fortunate to be a leader. Treating your coworkers as you would want to be treated will go a long way in developing a cooperative team.
Learn your employee’s names. A great leader takes the time to learn the names of his or her most immediate staff, and even the names of the top performers under them. It shows them that you care enough about them to know them not just as a worker, but as a real person.
Don’t shift the blame for mistakes to others. Subordinates, outside contractors, and plenty of other people within the organization can cause a business transaction to go wrong. If you try to shift the blame, you will lose the confidence of your customers and they won’t patronize your business any longer.
Sincerity plays a major part in leadership. The people that you are leading may come to you with problems. These problems should be listened to and addressed. It may be easy to brush off a problem when it’s not the most important matter. Your team will feel better about you being the leader if you can sincerely listen to and solve their problems.
Express a vision for the company. Great leaders differentiate themselves from great managers because of vision. They see where the company needs to be 5 years, 10 years and 20 years down the road. If you’ve got the vision, share it with your employees. Make them part of the team that’ll help get you there.
Know your competition just as well as you know your own company. Business isn’t just about what’s happening between the walls in your space. You need to make decisions based off competitive movement. If you can’t make decisions because you don’t know the competition, then expect your employees to see it as a weakness in leadership.
Use incentives to encourage good work. Though everyone is already paid for their work, incentives can better the quality of it. Rewarding a hard-working employee is important. Top leaders don’t penny pinch on this.
A great leadership tactic is to periodically meet with individuals concerning their personal work goals. Try meeting privately, going over goals they may have, as well as your goals for them as part of the team, or workforce. Then, find out if there is any way you can help them to meet these goals. Lastly, be sure to follow through.
When you are the leader of the group, you are responsible for the atmosphere. If you come to work in a bad mood and are disrespectful to your team, the atmosphere will be a negative one. Always try to keep things positive at the office, work site and in your communications with your team.
Be confident. If you are not confident about a judgment call, make sure you think it through before you enact it. The respect your team has for you relies a lot on your confidence when you talk to them, when you give orders and when you make judgment calls.
Learn to delegate properly. A good leader know that they cannot handle everything alone. They need others to do certain tasks. That doesn’t mean delegating all of your responsibilities to others, but if you know someone on your team wants to help or can do a certain task better than you, pass it on to them. This will keep things moving forward by letting you work on other tasks that need completed.
To be an effective leader, it’s important to show employees you want to listen to them, and care about asking for their feedback as well. They can offer ideas on improving all aspects of business. You can ask for an opinion on an idea you have as well. When you face criticism, resolve the issue and move forward, trust is always gained.
If you are the leader of a business, you should never let your personal opinions get in the way of how you do business. For example, never pass somebody up for a promotion simply because you do not like them. If they deserve to advance, you should set your feelings aside and make it happen.
Leaders can truly make or break a company. You have a lifelong responsibility to learn as much as possible about what it means to be a successful leader. Continue your education and do everything in your power to learn more about the nuts and bolts of effective and dynamic leadership.
