5 Ways To Become an Outstanding Leader
Contrary to popular beliefs, outstanding leadership qualities aren’t restricted to CEOs and business owners. Any person with a project management role or in a team can benefit from honing and improving their leadership skills. Effective leaders not only impact the performance of the team members they’re managing but also contribute to the overall growth of the company as a whole. Besides that, it’s been discovered that employees working under exceptional leaders tend to be more content, productive, and connected to the company.
A study by the Center for Creative Leadership claimed that approximately 38 percent to more than half of newly appointed leaders in an organization fail within the first 18 months. As an aspiring leader, you can avoid being a part of this grim statistic by taking note of the following strategies that can make you a better leader at the workplace.
First, Understand Your Leadership Style
To become an exceptional leader in your organization, you need to have a working understanding of your preferred leadership style. Ideally, your personal characteristics significantly affect the efficiency of your leadership.
For instance, while some individuals may prefer being regarded as visionaries, others may prefer a bureaucratic approach to organizational management.
However, as a prospective leader, you should evaluate your strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities to guarantee a successful tenure.
You can take up a leadership quiz to help you gauge your effectiveness as a leader or to gain insight on the existent types of leadership. With this knowledge, you can discover some of the characteristics of an efficient leader. Your analysis may also help you determine areas that you may need to put some extra effort into. Once you’ve gathered all of this information, you can start seeking ways to improve your leadership qualities.
Become a Mentor
Besides fulfilling your role as a manager, you should also strive to be a role model and a mentor to your subordinates or fellow team members. An exceptional leader should exemplify the characteristics they want their employees to emulate.
That said, if you aspire to be a leader within your organization, you should focus on the characteristics that can improve your team’s performance. These include values such as honesty, accountability, and positivity. If you’re committed to any one of the following values, your team will naturally admire you and strive to emulate some of your behaviors.
However, being a mentor isn’t about your team emulating your behavior. Instead, you should constantly communicate with your team to inform its members of some of the areas they may need to improve on. This can help them initiate the next step of progressing their careers.
Encourage Creativity
A good leader should empower the employees to tap into their creative prowess when seeking solutions for day-to-day problems at the workplace. Employees that have the opportunity and incentive to utilize their creativity to work around complex tasks will eventually excel at the workplace.
To foster creativity among the team members, you can develop group exercises that can foster collaborative relationships among staff members. Such practices can also help your team identify ways to deal with work-related challenges outside a controlled setting.
As an added advantage, you should also consider making an effort to reward your personnel for positive developments resulting from their thinking outside the box.
Embrace Effective Communication Skills
If you’re looking to leave a reputation as an effective and reliable leader, you need to nurture your written and verbal communication skills at all levels.
Essentially, you should be able to communicate with staff members in any department of your organization, from new employees to customer service professionals and chief executives. Since communication is essentially two-way traffic, you should be a good listener too.
Actively listening to the sentiments of your team members can help you understand their drive and what you may need to do to inspire them. It may also be a great idea to be selective with your words when addressing fellow team members.
Essentially, you should try avoiding industry jargon and irrelevant anecdotes that may upset your staff. In that regard, you can focus on your pitch, body language, and eye contact during communication.
Your non-verbal communication skills, which mainly comprise your hand gestures, facial expressions, posture, and eye contact, also matter. For instance, talking about serious concerns with a seemingly jolly mood may render your message inauthentic. Similarly, discussing light-hearted matters while with a serious look on your face may send conflicting messages to your staff members.
Become a Better Leader with Midlife Coacher
If you’re looking to discover your potential as a leader, you can gain professional insight from career counseling sessions at Midlife Coacher. We can help you define your vision, find your first job as a leader, and assist you in making a career change.
