A recent survey revealed that almost 80% of employees were dissatisfied with their direct managers. These results raise questions leaders on their leadership skills in the workplace and their performance, while also questioning whether people are not good leaders or that they fail in the role they perform. Additionally, it is also raises questions about whether leaders are as effective as they should be.
The following points will try to answer all the questions above, and will also guide you how to be an effective leader and foster leadership skills in the workplace.
-
What You Say is What You Do:
The most important quality of a leader is to deliver on his promise. In cases where a promise could not be fulfilled, it is crucial to either ask for more time or clarify the matter.
-
Dress to Impress:
Dressing well always makes an impression. You would reluctant to hire someone who dresses shabbily and comes to work unkempt.
-
Give and Take:
To expect your team to respect your clients, you should offer the same respect and admiration to your team. This ensures that you not are biased, as you are treating all equally, while also creating a long term bond with them.
-
Value Personal Growth:
There is only one way to grow your business, set your business goals and align those goals with employee’s personal goals. For example, a product based company offers 50 $ to the employee that comes with a great idea of boosting their product. This motivates the employee to research and acquire more knowledge to make the product a success.
-
Give and Take Feedback:
Make sure to schedule a fortnightly or weekly meeting with team members and encourage them to provide on-spot feedback about yourself, the company, or any other process issues.
-
Communication is the Key:
Be sure to communicate clearly what you expect from others, and there should not be any assumptions. If needed, task assignment could be done through mails or other formal channels so the people are well aware of what’s happening around. Additionally, a leader is not someone who always speaks, and making your team think that you always speak is not a good sign, . You need to listen to know the issues or concerns raised by the team and also the brilliant ideas that may be churning in their minds.
-
Accept Your Mistakes:
Accepting a mistake and correcting it is the mark of a true leader. Your team and your followers would appreciate if you stand up for your mistakes, rather than resorting to other tactics to hide them.
-
Accept Failures and be a Risk taker:
A leader is one who is willing to take risks and accepts failure with sportsmanship. Being a risk taker also has an extra advantage of chancing upon new fields and areas. However, as a leader you should also be willing to accept failure and its consequences.
-
Promote Creativity, Rewards and Recognition:
A good leader is said to be a good mentor as well. Therefore, as a leader you should promote new talents and give challenges to your team to showcase their skills and creativity. Additionally, rewards and recognition on successful completion of tasks also keeps your employees motivated.
As an individual you may be energetic, enthusiastic, passionate, good listener and a genuine person. But how would your team know about it? Opening up, communicating with them will build this relation and reduce the gap. If you can work on your areas of strength and double on the weaknesses, then you can be an effective leader with loyal followers who will share the same vision as yours.
