Being an effective leader is an important aspect of your career and your professional “grooming.”
Effective leaders have strong communication, motivation and problem-solving skills. Leaders are able to influence people in order to achieve results for an organization. Leaders know their strengths and weaknesses and look far beyond their own self-interests while encouraging others to do the same. True leaders are confident, respectful, fair, reasonable, compassionate, consistent, and most of all trustworthy.
Let’s look at five ways in which a leader can effectively drive an organization forward.
1. Focus on the goals of the organization.
To be an effective leader you must have a firm understanding of the vision of the business and maintain that vision in everything you do. You must be able to prioritize organizational success over your desire to advance in the organization and take the time to discuss the organization’s goals and objectives. If the entire organization is aligned in the overarching vision of the company, you can more easily drive success as the entire team will be more invested while at the same time have a better understanding of how their work affects other employee’s work.
2. Surround yourself with talented people.
It’s important to recruit talented people by first identifying the needed positions and skillsets, and then matching those with workers who not only possess the required skills but are also passionate about the work. It’s important to create growth opportunities for employees and communicate clear paths by which they may advance within the organization. Challenge your workers to innovate or drive efficiency by creating new systems for the team.
It’s also important to assess employee needs; tools, systems, workplace changes, team interactions, etc. Talk to your team member’s one on one to determine their needs in order to maximize employee success and thus organizational success. Engaging employees and making them feel valued empowers them to think, act, and innovate in a way that is natural to each of them. Lead your team to become more organic and empower the team members to encourage and enable each other. Measuring effectiveness is a function of each employee’s contribution to the overall vision of the company.
3. Develop your communication skills
It’s important that you have good communication with your team so that they properly understand your instructions and expectations. Keep your team up to date on progress with projects and big news as well as up to date on events and achievements. The better you can keep employees updated with news and the vision of the company, the more they’ll feel like a real part of the team as opposed to just a cog in the machine. Be specific about tasks and deadlines, and finally, be approachable and available for your employees to offer guidance and help find solutions.
4. Empower Employees
Empower your employees to make some decisions about their work. Doing so will keep them engaged and excited about their work product. Be sure your teams know what kinds of decisions they have the authority to make. Check-in with them to track their progress to ensure they reach the stated goals but give them the power to reach those goals in ways they deem as fit. When you give employees the ability to succeed or fail on their own accord, you show them you have confidence in their talents and processes and this helps fire them up to succeed even more. Allow your employees to be passionate about what they do.
5. Keep it simple
Be aware of your own management style and learn how you can take advantage of your own personality to be a good leader. Don’t overcomplicate things for your employees and pat yourself on the back when you are able to swoop in and save the day. Hold yourself to the same standards that you hold your employees.
Here at Incentive Solutions, we’ve been helping companies lead and reward their employees through our incentive programs for decades. It’s one of our specialties. If you’d like to know more about setting up an incentive program for your company, call us today at 1-866-567-7432.
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