How can We Improve Leadership?
How Can We Improve Leadership?
Do you want some help to improve your leadership?
Leadership is important to you because your future success depends on the quality of the decisions made by the leadership and the dexterity with which the leaders lead the team.
If the leaders perform well - meaning, if they make the right decisions, formulate effective plans and then inspire the team to give their best performance - then the future will be bright.
On the other hand, if the leaders don't perform well - meaning, if they make poor decisions, have chaotic plans, and fail to inspire the team - then the future will be terrible.
We rely on leaders to do their job well.
Plato said, "Only the wise should rule". Or to put it another way, if you want to rule, then it is important to become wise.
Leaders need to develop leadership qualities
In order to lead, your leaders need leadership qualities.
What are the leadership qualities?
There are many leadership qualities, but there are seven ESSENTIAL leadership qualities that every leader must have if they are to function well as a leader.
1. Leaders need to create and sustain a clear goal
Leaders must be able to create and sustain a clear vision of a goal, and to believe that the goal is achievable.
A clear vision is important because the leader needs to lead people somewhere specific!
Many leaders don't actually lead. Instead, all they do is engage in a process of continual crisis management. But crisis management is not really what we want from our leaders, is it? We want from them, a clear vision; a promise for a better future.
2. Leaders need the ability to communicate
Leaders must be able to communicate the vision in such a way that others will also believe it and will want to achieve it.
Communication skills are important because leaders have to affect the minds of their followers.
It is not a mere coincidence that the great leaders are very often also the great communicators. Examples, Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King.
And also the great communicators often are given the role of leader, Examples, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.
If you want to be a better leader, then you need to be a better communicator. If you would like training to improve your communications skills please follow this link.
3. Leaders need the ability to select the right team members
Leaders need to be able to select the right colleagues that will have the combined talents sufficient to figure out exactly how to achieve the goal.
This is important because in order to achieve the goal, you will need the right plan. And in order to figure out the right plan, you need the right people.
Nobody can succeed on their own. Leaders need to be experts at finding and motivating the right people. Leaders need their people to cooperate together. Leaders need to develop great teams that are capable of building excellent plans; we all need plans that are winning plans.
A goal without a winning plan is futile.
A goal with a winning plan is a fortune.
4. Leaders need the ability to manage conflict
Leaders need the ability to manage the personalities in the team so that they are working cooperatively and not conflicting with each other.
When conflicts do arise, they are dealt with rationally, not emotionally. This is important because the team operates best when people get on well. But people don't always get on well. Sometimes they fall out with each other.
The leader needs to be able to manage conflict in a team so that the conflict is the cause of creativity, not the cause of trouble. Conflict can be beneficial in a team since there is creative energy in the process of arguing; but conflict can also be a destructive force, when the team destroys itself. Leaders need to manage internal conflict according to logical principles.
If you would like training to improve your conflict skills please follow this link.
5. Leaders need to maintain a high degree of enthusiasm
Leaders need the ability to maintain this enthusiasm, energy and optimism, in spite of many setbacks, difficulties and temporary defeats.
This is important because the leader will be under pressure from all sides. The leader experiences pressure from the team, pressure from the public, pressure from the customers, and pressure from the suppliers. It is easy for the leaders to lose their motivation. So the leaders need to develop the art of self-motivation, self-control, self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-belief. Leaders need to develop emotional toughness.
6. Leaders need the ability to inspire others
Leaders need to feel the same emotions of enthusiasm, energy and optimism and to act continually towards the achievement of the vision-goal.
Even if the leaders know how to create positive emotions in their own soul, they need also to know how to inspire the same emotions in the souls of others.
The leaders need to be able to make other people share their vision and feel their passion. A leader who cannot inspire others, is not a leader.
If you would like training to improve your leadership skills please follow this link.
7. Leaders need the ability to act as a role model
Leaders need to know how to exemplify the qualities they want to see in others. Leaders need to act as a role model; to personify the qualities he/she wants to see in the rest of the team. The leaders need to act as the standard bearer and as an advocate for the team, to represent the team to the world beyond the teams own boundaries.
This is important because the leader needs to prove to the team that the leader is the real deal. Nobody likes a fake.
The best leaders are role models. Think of Richard Branson. If you think of Richard Branson you think of Virgin. If you think of Virgin, you think of Richard Branson. Leaders need to be role models. The worst thing you could say to your colleagues or your kids, is "Do as I say, not as I do".
Our advice to all leaders, "Don't TELL them how you want them to act, instead SHOW them."
Aristotle said, "You are what you habitually do".
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About the Author: Chris Farmer
Chris Farmer is the founder of the Corporate Coach Group and has many years’ experience in training leaders and managers, in both the public and private sectors, to achieve their organisational goals, especially during tough economic times. He is also well aware of the disciplines and problems associated with running a business.
Over the years, Chris has designed and delivered thousands of training programmes and has coached and motivated many management teams, groups and individuals. His training programmes are both structured and clear, designed to help delegates organise their thinking and, wherever necessary, to improve their techniques and skills.
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