Employers tend to seek staff with commendable leadership skills, and being a good leader is an added advantage that will set you apart as an employee at your work place. Being a professional in your field, as well as the most intelligent person at your work place, will certainly not qualify you as a good leader neither will it equip you with the necessary leadership skills. Hence a proper understanding of the essentials of good leadership and how to acquire these leadership skills is important. Good leadership requires personal human qualities and goes way beyond mere written words. For an individual to have effective leadership skills and becomes a good leader, there are some major qualities that individual should process, as well as master how to utilize those qualities in any given environment.
Exhibiting Honesty in any given situation
As the saying goes, honesty is the best policy, and as a leader you will always be held accountable for your words no matter how little or big. Once people believe in you as a leader, it will be easy to win their trust and convince them to follow the path you’ve laid out for them. The bar can also be raised higher as a leader, to gain total trust in regards to finances and business decisions. Being open and honest is a major value of leadership as those you lead reflect who you are and the characteristics you portray are likely to be emulated by your team members. Moreover, honesty as a leader makes it easy for you to lead peacefully, be happy, unworried and productive.
Listening to your followers
The ability to pay attention is a good attribute for any successful relationship. This can be channeled to the relationship a leader has with the followers. A leader who listens to the followers, encourages them to express their feelings and air their views. A good leader should be accessible and always listen to the members of the team being lead. It’s advisable not to make a god of yourself as a leaders and disregard the contributions and opinions others. A leader should be diplomatic and give the team members a chance to be heard and recognized.
Having a Positive Attitude
Being positive no matter what the situation maybe and handling all challenges in a positive way, sets the pace for the team members, whereas boosting motivation as well as eliminating doubts when difficulties arise. If as a leader you tend to be discouraged, moody and negative all the time, the members of your team will definitely lack the necessary motivation, which will reduce their level of performance. Despite how challenging the activities may be for your team, always try to stay positive in order to keep the team together.
Being creative
Though it’s advisable to make references to effective techniques that have worked in the past, looking out for new methods and thinking out of the box, isn’t such a bad idea. It’s important to be quick in thinking and solving problems that need immediate solutions. Being creative involves being open minded as a leader and willing to turn to your team for ideas. In addition don’t be too quick to pick the easy solutions to a challenge, always try and add some creativity in your decisions and choices.
Knowing how to delegate
Every team has a vision, and a leader is chosen to lead the team in the right path to actualize that vision. However, if you as a leader do not trust your team with the aforementioned vision, then there will a big challenge in delegating, meeting deadlines and achieving goals in that team. A good leader must learn to trust the team members, this will make them belong; feel important and responsible for their actions. Trusting your team is an edge and delegating tasks is a very effective technique used by leaders to get adequate results. If you endeavor to do everything alone, the quality of your work will drop, and as the saying goes ‘no man is an island’; you need people to assist you in different aspects of life. Delegating will show your team that you trust and believe in their potentials and give you time to focus on more crucial tasks that cannot be delegated.
Being grateful
One of the ideal ways of motivating your a team is by recognizing and appreciating their efforts. A good performance needs to be appraised, and a leader who sees beyond the present, appreciates the team members using tangible rewards. Good leaders are always grateful for the contributions of the team members, who have contributed to their success. Being grateful gives the leader an advantage and respect in a team.
In general a good leader plays a key role in shaping the quality of the team members in a team. Also the followers are active player in the process of making their leader better.