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Dec 13, 2023 · 8 Essential Qualities of Successful Leaders. Summary. Becoming a great leader is a journey of continuous learning and growth. It’s a process — one that thrives on embracing challenges, seeking ...
- Overview
- 20 qualities of an effective leader
- How to improve your leadership skills
Whether you're leading a team or a meeting, developing and owning leadership skills can help you succeed at any stage in your career. Leadership skills include a combination of soft and technical skills, such as using your interpersonal skills to motivate your team or applying your technical knowledge to solve problems and complete tasks. Learning about the qualities of effective leaders can help you develop and apply these skills in your workplace.In this article, we discuss 20 qualities that make a leader great and offer tips on how to improve yours.Key takeaways:
•An effective leader possesses various qualities ranging from innovation, problem solving and a growth mindset to empathy and patience.
•Learning about these qualities can help leaders develop and apply these skills in the workplace, enabling them to motivate their teams and achieve their goals.
•Understanding preferred leadership styles, knowing their strengths and where they can improve and finding a mentor are ways leaders can improve their capabilities.
1. Accountability
Taking ownership of responsibilities and positive and negative outcomes is key to effective leadership. Leaders should be able to take responsibility for their team's work, as well as their own. This may involve apologizing for mistakes and developing new systems and processes to avoid errors in the future.Related: Defining Accountability in Management
2. Active listening
Successful leaders should be able to give, but also receive feedback from team members and listen. To actively listen, a leader can listen to the words being spoken but also understand the meaning behind them. You can practice active listening by minimizing distractions when having conversations, showing interest by using non-verbal cues and summarizing the speaker's words to show your understanding.
3. Collaboration
Often, leaders need to collaborate internally across departments and externally with vendors, third-party companies and contractors. It's important that they know how to find common goals and create partnerships for the most successful and mutually beneficial outcome. Good collaboration often involves prioritizing communication between parties to ensure your goals align and all participants understand your expectations.
1. Identify your leadership style
While you may use different leadership styles in different situations, it can be helpful to define how you want to lead your team, projects or meetings. Most professionals develop their own style of leadership based on factors like experience and personality, as well as the unique needs of their company and its organizational culture.For example, leaders in some industries offer their teams more autonomy than leaders in other industries. If you manage a team of creative professionals at an advertising company, you may offer more employee agency than the leader of an aerospace engineering team where technical precision is key to success.Read more: 10 Common Leadership Styles (Plus How To Find Your Own)
2. Define areas of strength and areas for improvement
Take time to consider which qualities you already have and which offer opportunities to improve. Asking for professional feedback from trusted colleagues or mentors can help you identify strengths and weaknesses you might have missed. Self-assessments can also help you learn how to use those strengths and weaknesses to benefit yourself, your employees and the workplace.
3. Find a mentor
Identify a person who you feel is a great leader and whose actions you'd like to imitate. You might consider someone from your childhood who was a role model for you, like a teacher, coach or band instructor.Ask them to be your mentor or find someone in an area that interests you. Use the opportunity to learn from them and adopt the qualities that make them effective. You can find mentors in your community through friends and family or even look up experts or alumni on professional networking sites.Read more: 24 Reasons Why Mentorship Is Important for Mentee and Mentor
May 11, 2023 · With half of organizations allowing some remote work, many teams are spread out. Good team leaders need to set an example, adopt an effective leadership style, and show confidence to their team. Some of the top team leadership skills are communication, listening, goal-setting, positivity, and self-accountability.
- Leadership is not all about you. The principal role of a leader is to enable and empower a team to achieve both collective and individual goals. It can involve delegation, instruction and training, but at the heart of it all is a desire to serve.
- Honesty, Integrity and Humility. Integrity and honesty are critical characteristics of a good leader, and both appear to be critically lacking. In a US survey, half of all employees reported that their bosses are liars who take credit for anything good that happens.
- Hold your team (and yourself) accountable. Away from the sports field, coaching is a critical skill in leadership that gives you the ability to hold your team (and yourself) accountable without shaming anybody.
- Good leaders make a decisive commitment to a vision. A commitment to a vision drives all great leaders. It’s more than a goal, and it’s different from a corporate mission statement.
Aug 9, 2024 · 3. Empathy. Empathy involves recognizing and addressing the emotional needs of team members. A leader who shows empathy builds stronger relationships, improves morale, and creates a supportive work environment. Self-awareness is one of the key competencies a good team leader must develop.
Aug 18, 2024 · 2. Strengthen your communication skills. Effective leaders are great at communicating needs to their team clearly and promptly. Whether you’re in an entry-level position or management role, you should work on strengthening both your written and verbal communication skills and other areas that may need improvement.
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Additionally, empower your team by involving them in finding solutions and decision-making processes, which can help ease transitions and foster a sense of ownership among team members. 20. Visionary leadership. A visionary leader doesn’t just set goals but inspires their team to envision and achieve a shared future.
