This article discusses some ways in which leaders can manage their people more effectively and can acheive streamlined results in offices.
Are all leaders born leaders? Or are they made? Or their potentials are triggered by some environmental factors? These are age old questions that might be difficult to answer. But one thing is certain: Once you are in those shoes, improving leadership to face everyday challenges and a wide range of dilemmas can be a hard to open cookie. Why? Because effective leadership involves things not only like defining outcomes, or inspiring others but a whole spectrum of other duties like helping people to put their talents to use, recognizing sometimes hard to detect opportunities or rising up to occasions that might be completely novel, which might be nerve wrecking both in practical and tactical ways. So with this perspective in mind, I conducted a research study as a part of my coursework to ask leaders from different fields what are their top strategies that allow them to remain effective in showing direction to others and winning their trust. To share with you all, here are the top 5 responses that were most commonly given:
- Find ways to be guided by other leaders whose work style you find impressive.
Some things to consider in this aspect:
- Shadow them if possible for a few weeks.
- Arrange a meeting with them over a cup of coffee to seek inspiration from them.
- Seek out if they offer any courses, have any books or other sort of guiding material. You can learn a lot from reading alone.
- Follow them on social media, Facebook, Twitter to keep up to date about any new unique insights or discovery they have to share.
2. Incorporate work practices and work environment that facilitate positive transformations
Some things to consider in this aspect:
- Be clear about your purpose, of those around you and how these link to your organization’s purpose. This helps you find clarity over what drives you and the people around, which allows companies to operate more effectively.
- Have clarity about your role. The more in control you are over your own mindset, the more hope, inspiration, strength etc you can generate amongst those around you.
- Be clear about with whom your loyalties lie. This can be the board of directors, your clients, your staff etc. Understanding what they need to achieve the best outcomes will allow you to give your most superior performance to support them.
- Create a culture of openness. By doing this you are allowing ideas, values and perspectives to be exchanged more openly, which will allow your staff to thrive and prosper more.
3. Be a part of planned and structured developmental programs at your office/ in your community
Some types of programs to consider in such a case:
- Self awareness programs: These include training on things like emotional self awareness (how your emotions can influence your work), accurate self assessment ( ability to fairly assess your strengths and weaknesses) etc.
- Self management programs: Such trainings include self control programs( how to manage your negative emotions), adaptability programs ( adjusting better into new environments) etc
- Social awareness programs: Examples include empathy ( understanding others people point of view, sensibilities etc actively and purposely), organizational awareness ( understand current organizational environments and politics) etc
- Social awareness programs: This can include visionary leadership( inspiring others with impactful leadership), communication ( how to effectively exchange ideas with people from varying backgrounds) etc
4. Immerse yourself in peer to peer environments, where there is an opportunity to spread your leadership ideas and first test some waters.
Some ways to go about doing this:
- Be ambitious for your organization (along with your own goals): This will allow your peers to understand that you are deeply committed to overall good and not just your personal good as a leader. More so, they must be willing to believe you.
- Practise to build consensus but assert control at the same time: Use any such prenatal opportunities to hone your negotiation skills, conflict resolution skills etc, but at the same time take this opportunity to learn to step up if there is a need to get into the shoes of a true leader.
- Hone your political skills: Try to learn deeply about the political environment of your organization by experimenting with different skills and tactics that can persuade and better motivate peers around you.
- Know when you can delegate some responsibility to others: Use such opportunities to know what are the situations in which you can trust others, let them take an upper hand and use their lead if they have something more creative to contribute. After all, this is how people whom you are aspiring to command will openly and freely come ahead with their best ideas for the betterment of the organization.
5. Develop and maintain ethics and level of commitment that are benchmarks of excellence in your domain
Some things to consider in this aspect:
- Be authentic. This means not to just lead from the top or not share yourself genuinely with your staff because they might think you are weak. But to open up yourself to share both your good and bad experiences, which can be an opportunity for growth and true direction for them.
- Be driven by values: Good values and great thinking is futile if only lip service is paid to these virtues. Leaders must practice what they preach. Only by doing the right things can they truly showcase others that they are genuine, sincere and great leaders.
- Create an environment of candour. It means to make it possible, in a safe way, for people to speak up their minds, bring out their grievances and express what they think is wrong. This will result in a true culture of fairness and inclusiveness.
- Be transparent: Share with your employees information about the company’s health and future goals, performance metrics, financial results etc whenever it’s shareable. This shows you trust your employees, which in turn helps them have greater faith in you.
