It is true that at some points, a lot of us have found ourselves in leadership positions, but how you undertake your leadership actions can go a long way to determine the result you will get and your effectiveness in the leadership position. It is worthy to note that leadership qualities are not congenital - it is not something that you are born with or gifted with. Rather, you train and develop yourself towards leadership. Here, we shall be taking the first part of the qualities to develop in order to fit into leadership positions and to do well as a good leader.
Image from Pexels
1. Active communication
As a leader, active communication should be among your greatest allies. These include: listening to people speak without feeling the need to interrupt their speech. Even if they are not making an agreeable point, it is not an enough reason to cut them short or interrupt them. Hear them out first. After all, you do not need to agree with them first before you hear them out. More so, actively listening to someone can present answers to the questions you would have asked and even ward off assumption.
After you have listened attentively, then when it comes for you to speak, always do it with a positive tone. It is not enough to speak, but what are you speaking and how will your words be perceived in the mind of the person that is listening to you? You need to pay attention to easily negligible details like body languages, expression, emotions, tones, etc, because these are what matter when communication is done. As a leader, a wrong tone from your statement even with the right words, may become a source of discouragement to your followers instead of a source of inspiration. So know how to speak.
2. Build positive relationships
You will agree with me that it is easier to get someone to do your biddings and perform tasks if you already built a positive relationship with the person. They will easily follow your dictates, not because of fear, but because they want to support your leadership. A lot of people force leadership and they end up making their subordinates to be scared of them instead of to be inspired by them. The difference between rulership and leadership is in the method by which you get your followers to do your biddings.
Instead of forcing orders on people or forcing them to perform a task, it will be more productive to get them motivated and inspired to do it. A little incentive added to a task can be all that will be needed to motivate them to act. During my brief internship program many years back: People do not normally like weekend duties because they felt they needed to use the weekend for themselves. However, when the Head of Department put allowance for weekend duties, everyone was eager to come for weekend duties. You see, what others could not achieve by enforcement, he achieved by simple motivation, because he learnt to build a positive relationship with the staff.
Image from Pexels
3. Lead by following
As a leader, it is not everytime that your opinion will be the only one, and it is not always that your wish will be done, even though the bulk of the decision rests on you. At some points, you will need to take the back seat and allow others to put in their own contribution and allow them to feel belonged. Trust me, it will be easier to lead people if they know that you have given them an "open-door policy" and their opinion will count.
You have to understand that everything about the organisation does not revolve around just you. Other people's inputs also matter to the success of the organisation and you need to appreciate it. A leader that cannot welcome opinions from others and cannot allow others to air their views has a lot to learn about leadership. One needs to understand that no one, not even you as a leader, knows everything. You will be surprised that someone that you do not expect might have the solution to the problem that has been bugging you. So learn how to also be a follower even as a leader.
Thanks for reading
