admin There is more to effective leadership than sitting in the corner office, delegating tasks. Anyone can do that. But good leaders do more. They are significant members of not only the team they manage, but also the organization they work for. Team members with effective leaders are happier, more productive, less burdened. They have good work life balance. They have fewer health conditions that are directly a consequence of stress, like diabetes and blood pressure. These leaders create a ripple effect that ultimately increases the business.
“I think a great leader is one who makes those around them better,” Dana Brownlee, founder of Professionalism Matters, told Business News Daily. “There are many litmus tests for a great leader, but I really look to those around them: Are they growing, becoming better leaders themselves, motivated, etc.?”
Leadership is a process by which an executive can direct, guide and influence the behavior and work of others towards accomplishment of specific goals in a given situation. Leadership is the ability of a manager to induce the subordinates to work with confidence and zeal.
Leadership is the potential to influence behavior of others. It is also defined as the capacity to influence a group towards the realization of a goal. Leaders are required to develop future visions, and to motivate the organizational members to want to achieve the visions.
If you feel that your team has become stagnant, or their growth saturated, and an overall feeling of disengagement, it may be time to reassess and reform some of your strategies. The following behaviors are signs of that are clear indicators of improving your behavior strategy.
- Your team hardly criticizes your ideas, and has supported every one of them in the past month.
- You spend more time focusing on your own career progression than that of your team members.
- You haven’t had at least three completely non-work-related conversations with a team member in a week.
- Different team members would provide different answers if asked your top three priorities for the year.
- Team members are afraid to fail.
The following points justify the importance of leadership:
Initiates action– A good leader is a person who starts the work by communicating the policies and plans to the subordinates from where the work actually starts.
Motivation– A good leader proves to be playing an incentive role in work. He motivates the employees with economic and non-economic rewards and thereby gets the work from the subordinates.
Providing guidance– A good leader has to not only supervise but also play a guiding role for the team members. Guidance here means instructing the team members the way they have to perform their work so that they are more efficient and effective.
Creating confidence– Confidence is a crucial factor which can be achieved through expressing the work efforts to the team members. Explaining clearly the role of each member and giving them guidelines to achieve these goals effectively is a good leader’s task. It is also necessary to take note of the employees’ complaints and problems, and taking effective measures to resolve them.
Building morale– Morale is that intangible aspect of human nature that is paramount to motivate an employee. It denotes willing co-operation of the employees towards their work and getting them into confidence and winning their trust. A good leader can be a morale booster by achieving full co-operation so that they perform with best of their abilities as they work to achieve goals.
Builds work environment– Management is getting things done from people. An efficient work environment helps in sound and stable growth. Therefore, keeping human relations in mind is important for a good leader. He should have personal contacts with employees and should listen to their problems and solve them. He should treat employees on as more than work colleagues. But a good leader must also be careful to not give too much freedom to employees.
Co-ordination– Co-ordination can be achieved through reconciling personal interests with organizational goals. This synchronization can be achieved through proper and effective co-ordination which should be primary motive of a good leader.
Remember, “To become an efficient leader, you must be self-motivated”. You must know your own identity, your own desires; and you must have a strong urge to go beyond your limits to achieve your goals. Unless and until you are not self-motivated, your team cannot perform well. Once you have enough self-motivation, only then can you motivate others to achieve their goals and to harmonize their personal goals with the common goals of the organization.
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