The success of the team depends on its leader. If the leader is good enough, the team is bound to succeed. On the other hand, if the leader does not care about the team or doesn’t have enough knowledge, it can affect the success of the whole team. If you want to become a great leader, you will need to find out about your strengths and weaknesses and work on them. It is not a difficult task to sit in your office and give orders. Leading the team is something that the great team leaders are known for.
It will have a positive effect on the team members, on the overall company and its productivity. If no one in your team has criticized your ideas, or if you have not had any non-work-related talks with your team members, or if you are too busy in planning your career path, and do not care about your team member, then you might be suffering from a case of poor leadership. Below are mentioned seven methods with the help of which you can improve your leadership qualities.
Learn from the Others
Do you have the paragon whose style you want to follow? A lot of people are learning from very successful companies’ leaders. If your icon is Apple, you should learn Tim Cook or Steve Jobs leadership style. It’s useful not only to learn what they did to succeed but also to take a lot of attention to the mistakes they made. As wise people say, it’s better to gain experience from the mistakes of others than from your own. So be wise and take these lessons carefully. Relationships with people are not the sphere where you can have an endless quantity of chances to change the situation.
Conduct Open Communication
One of the most important points and qualities of a good leader is that he or she is involved in open communication. They are honest in those talks and can customize their interactions based on different situations. This point will help create trust among your team members. Moreover, their overall morale would boost, as well. Always spare some time for talking to your team. And it shouldn’t be only work communication. Ask about someone’s garden or cat. People are flattered to work with ones who care about them.
Connect with Your Team Members
The leader must be able to connect with the team members so that there is a mutual sense of understanding between the leader and the team members. Some of the traits that the leader must have according to a leadership author, Terry ‘Starbucker’ St. Marie, are humility, empathy, love, compassion, purpose, and positivity. If a personal connection exists between the leader and the team members, then only the trust would enter their relationship. As it was said below, start from open communication and tell about yourself as well.
Personal and Professional Growth Should be Encouraged
As a good team leader, you must learn to encourage the professional and personal growth of your team members. A small budget should be kept aside that can be used for the growth of the employees. With the help of the virtual and on-demand options, various new skills can be learned, or improvement can be made to the existing ones. Apart from the investment in the growth of your team member financially, emotional investment should be made as well. Believing in your team members can help them in achieving various tasks. Therefore, you must not be afraid to encourage the creativity and freedom of your employees.
Keep a Positive Attitude
It is not possible for the day to day operations to run smoothly every day. Sometimes, there are certain problems that you need to overcome by keeping a positive attitude. These problems can arise from either a major error or a minor miscommunication. Still, your method of handling that problem in that situation would tell your team members a lot about your leadership qualities. You must first look at least three positive points about the problem. If you can find the positives in a problem, then you will be able to react positively with each other as well.
Instead of Ordering, Teach the Employees
You will not be able to engage your team member by ordering them around. It would help if you did not control the people. You should know how to help your team member in selecting the best choice that is in front of them. Therefore, you should not order your team members, rather teach them, so that they can work in a healthier environment. Moreover, this would help you out in creating new leaders for the future.
Give Direct Feedback and Ask for Feedback
It is particularly important to give your team members your honest feedback. It could help them out, even if it is criticism. It would lead to their improvement, which would improve the overall productivity of your company. Apart from constructive feedback, you must also appreciate if an employee does something nice. On the other hand, you must also ask for honest feedback from your team members. Your mentors and a fellow professional can help you out in this too.
Conclusion
The points that are mentioned above will help you out in improving your leadership qualities. A good leader must be able to understand their employees or team members better than they know themselves. A good leader should be open to new ideas and new ways of thinking.
An open discussion on various issues should be conducted, which would improve the connection of the leader to its team members. These points would increase the trust of the team members on their leader, which would then lead to a better working environment and greater productivity.
Hey Guys! My name is Richard Andrew. I am a contributor to the Strategy Watch. I have finished my graduation with a major in Economics. My interest areas are Economics, Financial Analysis, Stock Analysis, and Business Strategy.