Leadership is an art, not a science. Many leadership experts will tell you this; leadership cannot be distilled into a simple formula that can be followed by anyone and everyone. There are many nuances to leadership that make it hard for someone who has never led anything before to suddenly become the next Steve Jobs or Abraham Lincoln.
However, leadership does have some basic principles at its core which are universal across all cultures, organizations, time periods–you name it! These basics are what we’ll focus on in this article.
1. The definition of leadership is a person who guides and inspires others
The key idea of leadership is not just being able to get things done alone–it’s about motivating and guiding others around you so that you can help solve problems more efficiently as a team.
A great leader knows how to work with everyone. He/she knows how to find out what makes each individual tick and use that information for the betterment of their team.
A leadership role is not an inherently more important position than other roles in the organization, but it does come with greater responsibility. So keep in mind, leadership is not something to take lightly.
2. Leadership skills can be learned in any profession, not just for business leadership
It doesn’t matter whether your profession is in marketing, finance, or even construction–leadership skills are transferable to any industry! Some of the biggest names in leadership have come from various fields such as sports (Michael Jordan), and the military (General Eisenhower).
The leadership skills you learn in one profession can be applied to another. So don’t think that leadership is just for business leaders–it’s a powerful tool that anyone can use! So, if your organization needs better leadership, get on it!
3. To become an effective leader, you need to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses
Self-awareness is important to everyone. Unfortunately, many people spend almost half their lives searching for themselves. If you want to be an effective leader, you don’t have the luxury of time in the self-awareness department. After all, if you don’t know how to understand yourself, what makes you think that you can even begin to understand the people around you?
This doesn’t mean that you need to have every single thing regarding yourself figured out. If you do, that’s great, but if you don’t a good place to start is identifying your strengths and weaknesses.
A great leader understands what they’re good at and knows how to use that to achieve their goals. But they also know what they suck at and what they will do to compensate for it. This may mean being humble enough to ask for help or delegating certain tasks to someone more qualified.
Once you realize your own strengths and weaknesses, it’s a lot easier for you to create an effective leadership style! Remember: leadership is about getting things done through others–you need to know how to work with yourself in order to effectively get things done through others.
4. A good leader must also remember that their followers are human beings with feelings too
Although a great leader will be good at having his/her followers get things done, the feelings of others are never pushed aside for the sake of efficiency. After all, leadership is about inspiring and motivating others to achieve a goal, not ruling with an iron fist.
So the followers of a good leader will never feel like their feelings are being cast aside. They will be able to feel the respect of their leader even if they are being disciplined or disagree with a decision that was made. A good leader understands the importance of taking care of their followers as individuals since they’re going through this experience together.
Your greatest asset is your team. If things ever go south your team members will stand by you for as long as they can because they’ll care about you and your cause because you cared about them.
5. When leading the way, it’s important to always keep your team updated on what you’re doing or where they’re going next
A good leader doesn’t just look ahead to where they’re going, and dragging team members behind them. A leader should never leave team members in the dark about where their mission is headed.
If you neglect to update your team, this would be assuming that after deciding to follow you your team members will be willing to go wherever you go.
This may be the case, but although you want your team members to be loyal to you as a person, it’s more important that they are loyal to your common goal.
So doing this leadership thing right means always keeping your team members in the know about what you’re doing or where they are going next. They will then be able to reassess what cause they are supporting. This way, even if personalities clash with each other along the journey everyone will be on board for one goal–to make it to their destination.
6. If you want people to follow you, then show them that there is something worth following behind!
Although anyone can have leadership skills, a leader usually has followers so to speak. So how do you do that? How do you get people to rally behind you and support your cause?
Again, it all starts with you. Who are you? What makes you worth following? You can tell people a great deal about yourself. Maybe you’re an eloquent speaker with a charming personality. This can make you a leader for about five minutes. Maybe ten minutes if you’re truly irresistible.
To attract the right people that will really stick with you through thick and thin you have to do more than tell them who you are. If you want other people following you somewhere then you have to SHOW them why they should follow behind someone like you. This might take some time, but it will all be worth it in the end because you will end up with a strong team that’s ready to do the legwork with you.
The Conclusion Defined
If you’re looking for a way to up your leadership game, then let’s chat! Top Tier Coaching Services offers strategies and training that will help you turn into an effective leader in any profession. To become the best leader possible, it is important to be aware of one’s strengths and weaknesses; however, this isn’t always easy because we are often too close to ourselves. A good leader also needs empathy towards their followers- they are human beings with feelings like everyone else who deserves respect. When leading people or teams, remember that there must be something worth following behind (or at least show them what lies ahead). Let us know if you want more tips on how to lead effectively by emailing hello@toptiercoacheservices.com.
