If you’re already in a leadership role, you’ll know that displaying effective leadership abilities means that you are:
- performing personally at an optimum level and
- uplifting the performance of others.
What skills do you need to do that?
This is the last of three ‘effective leadership’ posts. The posts define effective leadership abilities and habits and also some real-life examples of people who have displayed these skills.
“Relational skills are the most important abilities in leadership .” – John Maxwell.
4 Key Aspects of Effective Leadership Abilities:
8. Resilience – Maintaining effectiveness in situations of disappointment and/or rejection.
- Be optimistic yet observant and pragmatic.
- Focus on wins, and good things
- Problems do happen. Focus only on solutions.
- If bad news is delivered, make a new plan. Put any bad news into perspective. Your company didn’t get that government contract you worked so hard on? At least you’re not fighting for your life in a war zone.
- It can be lonely at the top. Invest in your own health and wellbeing. Spend quality time with your loved ones.
9. Initiative – the ability to actively influence events rather than passively accept events.
- Seek to improve your company or organisation.
- Watch for opportunities and act on them. Be prepared to initiate action.
- Have your eye on the future – where do you want your organisation to be in a year? Five years? Ten years?
Effective Leadership Example #4:
Malcolm is the owner/manager of a small refrigeration company. He’s spent five years building up a customer base. Finally, Malcolm decided it’s time to grow the business actively.
Malcom talked to his employees about redefining the company niche. Asking ‘what is it that we need to do to develop a point of difference? A point of difference that will allow us to gain market share?’.
Together, they decided on two points of difference.:
1. Preventive maintenance would be their priority
2. To expand their online presence using digital advertising
There was a lot for everyone to learn, but Malcolm focussed on the future, accepted the challenges and setbacks, and the costs involved to outsource digital advertising.
Fifteen months later, Malcolm says, in his typical Aussie manner, that he has ‘more than a trickle’ of businesses seeking out his company. He’s now doubled his small workforce and is optimistic about the future.
By initiating a brainstorm session and involving all staff in the decision making and visions of the future, everyone in the company is undoubtedly optimistic and looking forward to growth and development.
10. Work standards – able to set high-performance goals or standards for yourself, your staff, and your organisation.
- Take action to optimise the performance of the organisation, its people, and its processes.
- Personally demonstrate standards, values, and skills to show employees ‘how things are done around here’.
- Be consistent. If a rule applies to one staff group, should it apply to all?
11. Decisiveness
- Readiness to make decisions, render judgments, and take actions.
- Gather the information that you need to help you make good decisions.
- Decisions should be made swiftly and reviewed often to enable necessary
adjustments. - Be consistent in enforcing decisions.
- Leaders make firm, clear decisions – and stick to them. Including others in the company’s objectives and strategies is an essential part of building team morale and gaining commitment.
Simone is the CEO of a small service business that was having some cash flow problems. As part of the problem-solving procedure, Simone decided that for the following 12 months, no one would be allowed to use petty cash to buy morning tea.
At first, Simone made it clear that she also followed this rule, knowing that it was important to lead by example. A couple of months later, Simone began to dip into petty cash to buy morning tea when some personal visitors arrived.
As a result, staff members became disappointed. There seemed to be different rules for different people. Eventually, they followed Simone’s lead, and by the end of the year, the old habits had returned, and the company was again subsidizing morning tea.
Effective leadership abilities need long-term vision and approach. A serious effort is involved, too, but the results are worth it for everyone involved.
Click these links for Part 1 and Part 2 to find the other 7 effective leadership habits.
To your business success!
