A good leader cares about those surrounding him or her and helps them to succeed. Skilled leaders are good at helping others learn to lead. The ability to delegate is critical to good leadership.
If you’re trying to increase your leadership skills, a good place to start is with honesty. Your team needs to be led positively. As an honest leader, your direction will be understood and trusted. Always be honest when dealing with your colleagues because you can influence them to be honest.
Good leaders should focus on the future. It’s important to see what’s coming and plan for it. Obviously, it’s impossible to totally predict the future, but this skill needs to be worked on. Keep asking yourself where you’ll be six months from now, or even a year, then you can plan for it.
Don’t pretend that you know everything just because you are in a leadership position. Even if you have a lot of great ideas, let other offer their opinions. Many times they can give suggestions to you that you may have overlooked.
Try your best to be approachable. Intimidation is not a good characteristic in a leader. Some think leading with fear is the only way. It is not a good strategy, however; it only makes your team dislike you. Be sure your followers are aware you’re there to help them out, since as their leader, this is your job.
Take care to avoid doing anything that may appear to be devious or deceitful. Follow through with all of the promises you make to be trusted as a leader. If your claim is that your business has the best service for a particular category, then you need to communicate this to your employees so they know how best to give the best service.
Prepare yourself thoroughly prior to meeting with the team. Brainstorm potential questions they could ask. Think about how you will answer them. When you’re able to answer questions, the team will have more respect for you. This technique also saves time during meetings.
It is important you set ambitious goals for team members, but ensure they are not impossible to achieve. If you use impossible goals that will just set you up for failing. Failures like this only serve to promote your inability to lead.
Those who report to you are likely to judge you based on your decisions. For instance, your selections for projects, reasons for hiring, firing and more are all important. If you play favorites rather than handing out rewards to the people who deserve it the most, you lose credibility and it can really hurt your business.
You want to be successful in your leadership abilities. Now you know what behaviors to avoid and those that should be enhanced. A desire to do the right thing and continue learning is going to be what makes the difference. You must make the decision, and your choices must be the right ones.
There are tremendous opportunities for small businesses and social entrepreneurs to support their communities through community foundations, donor advised funds and other means of giving back. Find the neighborhoods in Erie, Pennsylvania where you can make the most impact on the youth in the community.