Learning to become a great leader has the potential to make a huge difference in your teams, organisations, and success as an individual. Here are some tips to demonstrate how leaders can make an impact and make the best of their teams. A great leader articulates their vision for their team and then empowers members to innovate, collaborate, and participate.
Great leaders show respect to their team members in many ways, especially by being engaged and working with them. A great leader must look to the team members to learn what they are doing, listen carefully, and give them opportunities to become more engaged with the process.
To be an effective leader, you must be the one making a difference for others regularly. Well, effective leaders do not just lead or dictate the agenda – they inspire, persuade, and motivate others. To truly be an effective leader, you need to master the skill of influencing others with your communication, self-awareness, and authenticity.
If you are already a leader, consider ways to influence others. Decide you are not a single-purpose contributor – you are a leader, so stop doing other people’s jobs for them and start influencing them to do their job. Delegate tasks and trust your people to get them done, and if they cannot, then train them, transfer them, or cut them loose.
The purpose of the influence leader is to build leaders for the next generation. Being a leader of influence, leading with impact, is not a job title; it is a calling. Leaders are responsible for connecting with their people and engaging them in ways that enhance the leader’s impact.
Leaders need to be close enough to connect to others yet far enough to motivate them. Leaders are considered successful only when they produce results, and they do this by working with people. When challenges are met and opportunities are turned into wins, people look up to leaders who helped them to reach their potential.
People react well when their potential is expanded by accomplishments, and they admire leaders who help them flourish. Influential people are capable of getting others to agree with them and garnering the respect of others around them. People enjoy understanding leaders who they are following so that they can relate to, like, and follow them.
Real leaders are authentically interested in what people think about those they are leading. Effective leaders do not simply speak from an authoritative position or attempt to direct; they listen, and they are highly self-aware of themselves and others. They have a deeper understanding of the larger context within which they are leading, and, perhaps most importantly, their agenda is open and transparent rather than cloaked in secrecy and self-interest. The best leaders will do whatever it takes to get things done for their teams, and they continually show they have their people’s backs, no matter what.
The famously best leaders accomplish goals by the quality of what they do and the way that they relate to people. Everyone around leaders with influence knows about their honesty through their actions, not only their words. They often accept a greater share of blame while taking fewer shares of credit.
Leaders who make an impact are responsible for the people around them, as well as holding others to high standards. They promote others’ success by encouraging, commending, and developing them. Leaders who make an impact do not accuse the people around them of being ineffective but instead teach, coach, mentor, and guide in order to help others achieve their fullest potential.
Impact data is a powerful way of showing why leaders need to be paying attention and take some time out to develop themselves. Leaders need to define their purpose and create impact plans for achieving specific results. Capability development programmes specifically designed for leaders or tools such as HBDI can help them to identify their own strengths and weaknesses and can also give them an idea about how employees perceive them. These valuable insights will help them to become great leaders by not just improving their skills but also by helping them to win the trust of people.
Always remember that team members depend on leaders to foster an environment of fairness, with equal opportunities for all on a merit basis. Leading a group requires a sense of mutual trust and understanding among leaders and their teammates.
In a nutshell, as an authentic leader, you have to participate in a manner that circumstances demand, is ethical, and is true to who you are, knowing and accepting of your strengths and weaknesses. As an influential leader, you offer ideas and perspectives that influence others in actions, behaviours, opinions, or beliefs towards mutually beneficial outcomes.