Practical approach to an effective leadership
Four areas to focus on
So what?
As discussed in our previous post, being an effective leader, whether at home or work, does the following:
- Aspires vision for the future;
- Inspires and motivates those that follow you to follow that vision;
- Develops and guides your followers to be more effective at helping you achieve that vision; and
- Delivers the vision.
Below are the practical steps that you take to become an effective leader.
Share your vision
- Take ownership of your vision, polish up your sales pitch and enlist others to follow your vision.
- Talk to your followers and build a good working relationship with them in order to their interests, dreams and values.
- Identify points of commonality in order to connect with them on a more personal level.
- Regularly share and restate your vision to your followers. You can never do this too much. Just don’t nag.
Encourage
- Take your followers out to lunch or coffee in a timely manner to celebrate wins, recognise achievements and show appreciation.
- Encourage your followers to share their personal goals they are willing to share and inquire about their progress time to time.
- Encourage productivity and incentivise performance by identifying adequate and appropriate monetary and/or non-monetary compensation and rewards. Be creative.
- Facilitate an environment whereby your followers feel comfortable to fail. Nonfatal failures are imperative in anyone’s learning and development journey.
Enable
- Give your followers tasks and responsibilities that they are capable of doing to build confidence and trust.
- Up your ante by giving them tasks and responsibilities that are beyond their capability to provide learning and development opportunities.
- Celebrate their achievements and/or show appreciation for their effort and willingness to take on more difficult roles.
- Also take time to celebrate at the end of school terms, big projects or other key milestones.
Challenge
- Identify areas of improvements and improve on them as well as make it blatantly obvious that you are.
- Solicit feedback about yourself and current way of doing things from your followers and show them that you are actively working and putting in the effort to make yourself a better leader.
- Solicit ideas from your followers and let them take the lead on implementing them.
My experience
I was never the type to solicit feedback. I had a mindset whereby all that mattered was my team’s work resulting in positive outcomes. As I climbed the corporate ladder and managed more staff, my leadership style and mindset had a greater influence and impact. Whilst all four areas noted above were exemplified with time and promotions, the one thing that stood out to me was seeking feedback. Not only such solicitation created an environment whereby I demonstrated that I was challenging the old ways of doing things, it created trust between me and my team members and encouraged them to replicate with their own colleagues.
What now?
- Identify one or two areas that you are lacking.
- Put on your to-do list the steps you will take to create and foster the environment that is shortcoming.