Contributed article in our leadership series. Enjoy! – Kimberly
Every great business needs a great leader, but what is it exactly that makes a leader great?
Firm but Fair
Any truly great leader must be able to strike a balance when dealing with their subordinates. In particular, it is important that you always make your workers aware when they make mistakes, as this is the only way that they will learn. However, your role cannot simply be to hand out work and critique the results. You have to mix constructive criticism in with compliments and acknowledgment of their strengths and achievements.
If you lean too heavily in either direction on this, you will find that you quickly have a demotivated workforce on your hands. As their leader, it is up to you to ensure that the various components of your business are acting in harmony.
Effective Communications
Making excellent leadership decisions don’t count for much if your employees aren’t going to follow through with them. If you don’t communicate your plans and intentions to your team clearly, you are going to make it very difficult for them to carry them out. Poor leadership and bad communications can lay waste to even the best-made plans. Make sure that whenever you institute new policies and procedures, they are communicated clearly to your team.
An Emphasis on Motivation
The most important role that a leader plays is in motivating their workers to perform their best. A good leader doesn’t get the best out of people by simply pushing them harder and further. Instead, they encourage people to do their best work by making them want to perform to an extremely high standard.
Delegating Efficiently
For any team to operate with maximum efficiency, it needs to divide up the tasks it has to compete into smaller chunks. It is much easier to delegate these chunks than it is to delegate an entire project. Without appropriate delegation of work, time is wasted trying to have people do work that they are either unqualified or poorly suited for,
Identifying Key Skills
As a leader, it is up to you to identify who the best person for each job is. This means that you need to be able to spot key talent and skills on your team as soon as you come across them. If you aren’t able to identify these skills on your team, you will find it harder to delegate efficiently.
For example, if you are building a website like Scantoolcenter.com, you might have someone on your team who knows a great deal about the subject at hand, but who lacks the writing skills to communicate their knowledge clearly. In such a case, you could pair them with someone who is able to write well, and who can listen and interpret what they are being told.
Eager to Inspire
Finally, a good leader should want to inspire those that work under them. Providing inspiration for your team is a hugely rewarding feeling; it will let you know with certainty that you have made a significant difference in people’s lives.
As well as all the skills listed above, a truly great leader must have one more important quality – humility. While it is up to you to shape and guide those that work for you, you should always make them feel valued and respected.
by 