If you’re already in a leadership role, you’ll already know that displaying effective leadership habits 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 #2 of three ‘effective leadership’ posts. The posts define effective leadership habits and some real-life examples of people who have displayed these skills.
‘Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.’
~ John Maxwell
3 Key elements of effective leadership habits:
5. Persuasiveness – the ability to make persuasive, clear presentation of ideas or facts.
Effective leaders can convince others on their own expressed point of view and gain agreement or acceptance of plans, activities, or products.
- Share your vision for your company with your staff.
- Be enthusiastic when talking about the company’s plans, activities, or products.
- Share success, however small, with your staff when introducing new plans, activities, or products.
- Include metrics and examples in your presentations, so it’s not just ‘froth and bubbles.’
6. Planning and organising – the ability to establish an efficient and appropriate course of action for self and/or others to accomplish a goal.
- Ensure that everyone knows their role in the plan.
- Include a timeline to keep everyone on track.
- Ensure that appropriate resources are available.
- Include a plan for checking-in on progress.
- Be prepared to back-track, re-evaluate, and change course if necessary.
7. Staff development – the ability to identify staff training needs related to current and future jobs.
- Develop a procedure for training new employees and for upskilling long-term employees. Include the whole team
- Consider how you’ll include casual staff in this training.
- Consider an informal ‘buddy’ system
- Establish a formal mentoring system. (Some companies don’t encourage employees to choose their own mentors; therefore, bad habits or attitudes can become entrenched)
Effective Leadership Example #3:
The problem: Hugh is the MD of a care organization. The turnover of casual staff was exceptionally high last year. Permanent staff was worried that there were so many new casuals, that it might be better to work short-staffed than to be accompanied by an untrained casual.
The plan: Hugh bought all the permanent staff together for a brainstorm session with the question, ‘what do we need to do to stop the high turnover of casual staff?’
That session led to the development of a structured plan of training for permanent staff that included ‘train the trainer’ modules. Consequently, several permanent staff members volunteered to receive explicit instruction on how to train new and casual staff.
Hugh made sure the plan was fully funded for the long term. The results of the implementation of the plan and the ongoing training were continually reported back to staff.
The result: A year later, the training plan is successful and ongoing. Regular reviews have seen it ‘tweaked’ several times.
Because the care organization has developed a reputation for training and supporting its staff, casual staff are now easier to source. As a result, staff morale is high. Permanent workers are keen to become trainers, and casual staff is happy to stay for the duration of their contract.
Coincidental? Maybe … or because Hugh’s effective leadership habits enabled him to:
- persuade the staff that their shared vision was going to work
- show staff that he valued their input
- lead the development and implementation of a thorough, systematic plan
- see that staff development was crucial to solving this issue
Effective leadership habits need long-term vision and approach. Serious effort is involved too, but the results are worth it for everyone involved.
To your business success!
