Introduction
Leadership skill plays a significant role in your personal (managing the house) and professional life. It’s possible that you’re already playing a leadership role at a lower level and you find it difficult to deal with a team member. Some people have a naturally charismatic personality by birth, and others have to work on their communication and leadership skills.
However, it’s a learned skill. You can become an inspiring leader with the right mentorship and practice. Many people have studied leadership skills and became efficient leaders. Today, we’ll discuss leadership, its significance, and how to improve leadership skill.
What is Leadership?
Leadership is a process of leading people and taking actions or series of actions toward success. The meaning and definition of success would be different for everyone in the team because various people have different goals and objectives.
For instance, the leader wants to achieve the sales target on time. We can also say that it’s the leader that unites different people towards achieving the common goal or objective. Most importantly, the leader provides reassurance and direction to the team members. Some of the main qualities of efficient leaders are;
- Relevant knowledge/skill/expertise
- Fair
- Organizational skill
- Empathy
- Resolving conflicts and disputes
- Great interpersonal and communication skills
- Active listener
Significance of Leadership Skill
Making your business profitable, meeting goals and objectives timely, are keeping the team on track are no doubt important traits. They help an individual person to win the promotion and rank up into the higher level of the management position. However, leadership is such a skill that every job requires it regardless of the industry or the goals.
It doesn’t matter whatever task you’re performing like developing a new product, launching a marketing campaign, or guiding the team member, the leadership skill would stay the same.
It’s important to keep in mind that when you take up the leadership role, then you would require confidence in order to effectively communicate the decisions daily. However, when you move to the leadership role, then it’s important to maintain the support of your former allies and friends. It would be a real test of your leadership skill.
How to improve leadership skill
It’s time to address the main question of how to improve leadership skill. Some of the main traits that you should learn, study, practice, and work on are as follows;
Inspired & Motivated
True leaders don’t find the motivation and inspiration outside in the external environment. They have the inspiration within themselves and visualization of the goals give them motivation and energy. It is such energy that no one could take away from you and leaders share it with their team members.
Care about Team
Good leaders think about their team and care for them. They make decisions that are good for all of them, instead of just for them.
Rejecting Negative Energy
If your team comprises of such negative minded that are spreading fear and confusion, then you should kick them out. If you don’t, then they would keep the morale of everyone and the remaining team member would question decisions and leadership.
Taking Leadership Courses
As I said earlier leaders are a learned soft skill. If you have recently taken the leadership role, then you should take the short courses on leadership. They work on changing your perception, behavior, and attitude. The more you practice it, the more it would become sharp and polished.
Mentorship
Mentorship is also a great way of learning along with short courses. The mentor could be your manager, leader, or senior person that you look up to and you can ask him/her for mentorship. He would spend time and energy polishing your leadership skill.
Attract Positive Mindset
You should recruit positive like-minded people into the team and remove all the negative people. They would improve the spirit and motivation level of the entire team. Therefore, you should open the door for them.
Targeting their Values
As a leader, you should find out the values of the team members, like what things people cat re about and show interest in. After that, you should develop a link between their values and your goals. The stronger the bridge is, the more it would attract the attention of people.
Enjoying Small Achievements
When you’re working on the long-term goal, then you should divide it into smaller targets. However, you should celebrate the completion of smaller targets and make the process fun. It would maintain the motivation level of team members up.
Rewarding Team Members
If your team members are doing good and achieving goals, then you should offer them rewards based on their performance. It would create a healthy competitive environment. It would increase the satisfaction level of members up when they receive incentives for their hard work.
Sharing Trust/How to improve leadership skill
You should divide the big goal into smaller tasks and distribute them among team members. It’s a way of sharing trust and encouraging them to use their approach to complete it.
Involving Team Members
As a leader, you should involve team members in various operations of the process. It would keep them occupied and amplify their practical experience.
Transparency
You shouldn’t keep anything hidden from the team and always share the information. It means that you should information about the circumstances and factors that would impact the project.
Reporting Problems
When you’re leading the team over a period of time, then you should report a problem whenever it happens. However, things would happen while working together, if you’re open about it, then you could easily find the solution.
Appreciating & Not Pointing Fingers
As a leader of the team, you shouldn’t point finger at them if something goes wrong. In fact, you should give them positive feedback and admiring remarks if they’re performing well.
Training the Team
You should launch various training and development projects to improve the skill set of your team members. Many businesses and multinational companies spend billions of dollars on training and improving the skill set of their employees.
Demanding
When you meet your goals and win over difficult circumstances, then you’re out of mediocrity. That’s why successful leaders demand things to happen.
Asking their Views
It is the leader’s job to ask his employees what they like and find it motivating, and what they don’t like and find discouraging. Once you’re aware of these factors, and then you should focus on the encouraging parts and avoid the negative points.
Recognizing Hardworking People
The leader should have the ability to recognize the right hardworking employees. After recognizing them, he then should focus on their professional growth and development.
Fearless
The leader should have a fearless and open attitude of taking risks and learning from the mistakes. Because it requires courage to take the risk and learning from the mistakes of wrong decisions.
Taking it to the End
Various training and time management courses teach leaders one thing that they should do one thing at a time. If they start some project, then they shouldn’t leave it in the middle, and they should make it to the end whatever the circumstances are.
Teaming Up
Smart leaders know the value of unity of the team, and they take various steps to maintain it. Like having a meeting outside the office, team building activities, cultural acts, etc. All of these steps bring people closer together.
Not Quitting
Every successful leader knows the significance of not giving up. If you’re going to quit, then it would also be a wise decision.
Conclusion: How to improve leadership skill
After an in-depth study of how to improve leadership skill, we’ve concluded that leadership skill is indeed a game changing skill because good leaders make a wise decisions. If you want to improve your leadership skill, and then follow the abovementioned professional suggestions optimize your skill.
Ahsan Ali Shaw is an accomplished Business Writer, Analyst, and Public Speaker. Other than that, he’s a fun loving person.