What Makes A Good Leader
Having strong leadership skills within an organisation is so important in creating productive, successful teams. Many organisations believe that the best leaders are those who are very good workers, with effective communication skills, who know the organisation’s products, goals, and procedures.
However, this does not prove that someone possesses the necessary leadership skills to mentor, motivate, and direct colleagues in an effective way. Understanding what makes a good leader goes beyond just being a good worker; it requires a deeper set of competencies.
The most effective way in which all leaders can become successful and gain key leadership qualities is through training. Effective leadership skills in management are often developed through experience, feedback, and continuous learning. Leadership courses are especially beneficial in honing these skills.
87% of employers said that ILM (Institute of Leadership and Management) training programmes positively impacted their business. This reinforces the idea that leadership skills are not just innate but can be cultivated with the right guidance and education.
Traits of a Good Leader
There are multiple leadership skills individuals need to be successful leaders in the workplace. We’ve chosen the top five to create a great foundation for your first steps in becoming a strong leader. Understanding what makes a good leader is essential to this journey.
Emotional Intelligence and Leadership
Emotional intelligence is not only about being self-aware but about having empathy too.
To be self-aware, you must identify that your emotions affect those around you. You also need to recognise that your ego can sometimes stunt your progress as a leader. So, you will need to let this go in order to be aware of both your strengths for a leader and weaknesses.
Empathy, on the other hand, is how you put yourself in someone else’s shoes. This will inevitably help you deliver constructive criticism fairly and wisely, whilst also being approachable and a good listener when your team needs help in difficult situations.
Having these communication skills will make you more emotionally intelligent and in turn, you will gain trust and respect among your colleagues and teams, and that’s what makes a good leader.
Decisiveness
Decisiveness ultimately is the ability to make decisions quickly and confidently.
Having great research, problem-solving, and planning skills, where you can use your own experiences to confidently make decisions, for the best results, can really help you improve business efficiency.
It’s also good to recognise that having knowledge of each department and how the department operates can really strengthen your decisiveness skills, giving you that background knowledge to proficiently lead. Effective leadership often hinges on making the right decision at the right time, which is a skill that can be developed.
Leadership courses are the best way to improve this background knowledge.
Communication
Effective communication skills not only mean speaking clearly to a team but also writing, listening, and presenting in a clear and concise manner.
This is such an important leadership skill to have when there are so many different communication forms. This could include team meetings, one-on-ones, and companywide presentations.
All the while communicating through different workplace platforms such as phone, email, video meetings, chat, and social media. Plus, these conversations need to be constant with the employees and leaders in order to create a trustworthy open-door ethos within the organisation. Effective communication is often cited as a core component of what makes a good leader.
Motivation
To be a successful leader, you need to inspire employees.
You can do this through motivation. You need to learn how and what motivates each individual so that you can encourage them to be more productive and passionate about their work. This is a crucial aspect of what makes a good leader and contributes to the overall effectiveness of the team.
An effective leadership strategy to motivate is to provide them with recognition; this improves their self-esteem allowing them to confidently undergo more work tasks. Or you could give employees more responsibilities to increase their overall personal asset to the company.
Delegation
Taking on too many tasks is the downfall of many leaders. That’s why it is so important to delegate tasks around the team so that your time and leadership skills are better utilised.
Leaders need to evaluate what their employee’s strengths and weaknesses are to match the right task to the right employee. Leaders must also trust their employees, to create a strong team environment. This trust is a foundation for effective leadership.
In having this trust, you will gain mutual respect from your employees.
How can you develop these 5 leadership skills?
Mastering all five of these leadership skills—emotional intelligence, decisiveness, communication, motivation, and delegation—helps towards developing your own personal development and career. Evidently, you will need to practice this over time and understand your own leadership style to fully excel as a successful leader. These characteristics of a good leader can be learned from already strong leaders, help from a mentor, or by improving your skills with a leadership course. Understanding what makes a good leader and recognising the strengths for a leader are essential in building a robust foundation in leadership skills in management.
