True Leadership

Acquiring and Developing Leadership Skills

Posts Tagged leadership skills

The Various Types Of Common Leadership Mistakes

Aug 18

Posted by John Roberts in Qualities | No Comments

Common Leadership Mistakes

 

 

People are placed in leadership positions typically because they have displayed outstanding leadership skills. There are some that feel once they are placed in a position of leadership that they have to make major changes.

 

What do you look for in a leader? There are multitudes of answers to this question but there are a few that are consistently mentioned in seminars. Personal skills, compassion, decision maker, courage, integrity, teacher and a person they trust. This is the most common expectation but they only touch the subject of being a successful leader.

 

You aren’t expected to change your style or personality when you are placed in a leadership position but to continuously improve on the skills that made you successful. One of the quickest ways to lose your team’s respect would be to make a sudden change thinking you need to be a different person. This is a common mistake made by leadership on every level.

 

The reason you have been selected is that you have shown people respond to your leadership style. To change will only confuse your team:  they will think you now think you are a better person than they are.

 

Another common mistake is dividing yourself from your team, great leaders never quit teaching. You can’t teach if you aren’t visible and engaged in the development of your team. Someone mentored you and you are expected to do the same, touch as many people lives as possible while developing future leaders.

 

The next common mistake is believing that you are more important than you actually are and bragging about your position. You were promoted to lead your team not your personal crusade of your greatness. A person in a leadership position that is constantly patting their selves on the back will find themselves demoted in short order. Senior leadership has great expectations from every leader and doesn’t have the time for egos vice leadership.

 

I don’t have to follow the rules the way I did before because I am now in charge. That is a true killer statement as you are now expected to follow every rule and regulation to the letter. No one ever wants to hear a team mate make the statement, “I saw my boss do it so I thought it was ok.” You will be observed every minute of the day and rest assured if you make a poor decision it will be common knowledge by everyone.

 

My team is my servant and there job is to do whatever I tell them to do. They are not your servants but a team of people desiring firm, fair and disciplined leadership. You have been entrusted to provide sound leadership for their morale, welfare, training and development. A well disciplined, proud and successful team is an obvious indicator of outstanding leadership.

 

These are but a few examples of common mistakes made by leaders. Use your leadership skills, common sense and dedication to building the best team possible and you will continue to be a successful leader.

                                                

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How To Delegate Effectively

Apr 28

Posted by John Roberts in Qualities | No Comments

Managers often get in the way of their own success. Call it what you will, but sometimes a manager can be his or her own worst enemy. The problem usually lies in an inability to delegate work to others. If this is you, the first corrective step should be to identify specific ways you resist delegating to others. The following list may help you with that task.

* Don’t Do Everything Yourself. You may tell yourself you have to do this, but it isn’t true. Others may work differently, but they can still get the job done. This fear often comes from a concern about the quality of work–and that is an altogether different problem. Doing things yourself takes away from time to manage and does not allow your staff to learn by doing. That’s the best way. And you know it.
* It’s Not Easier to Do Yourself. Actually, it is much easier to teach staff how to do something than to do it yourself. You save time this way and your staff gains new competencies.
* If They Don’t Have Time: Neither Do You. Let’s face it; everyone is working harder with fewer resources. If this is the case, stepping in an doing the work for your over-burdened subordinates only adds to your burnout possibilities and directly harms your ability to strategically manage the situation.
* You Are Going to Have to Do It Anyway. Well, if you are doing this, you obviously don’t trust your subordinates to complete the tasks before them. Good managers allow subordinates to make mistakes. Another reason may be that priorities need to be revamped. Try looking at that first.
* You May Want to Do It, But Don’t. Yes, it may be satisfying to do work you know will bring halos raining down upon you. Your job is to manage, however, not fulfill personal desires of success. Leave the delegated work to those with responsibility for it. Look for other ways to achieve job satisfaction by increasing your leadership skills.

Once you have identified the problem you can begin eliminating it. And manage better in the process.

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How To Improve Your Leadership Skills

Apr 28

Posted by John Roberts in Qualities | 1 Comment

This quite guide on how to improve leadership skills, I hope will be an inspiration to some of you further explore the world of personal development, and realise more of our potential by improving ourselves and the way we deal with the world.

Some describe leadership as a form of management technique, while others see it as a more complicated invisible social hierarchy that transcends job titles. I am in the latter group. While I believe that many management techniques can be used impressively to improve your leadership, I don’t agree that you are restricted and limited by your job title and salary.

Leadership is about relationships, authority and respect, and these can be improved upon in numerous different ways. At the heart of it is teamwork. Teamwork draws on all your skills as a ‘people person’ and therefore your skill at teamwork will generally relate to how good you as a leader. So the question of ‘How do I become a leader’ is really a question of ‘how can I lead a team’.

To improve your teamwork you need to work on the following areas:
How to be confidence and command respect and authority from team mates
How to give orders and ensure the job gets done without stepping on toes
How to coordinate and manage efforts without being seen as a ‘manager’.
How to enthuse and inspire your team into working hard and being productive.

Naturally, I cannot hope to tackle all these points in one article – so I don’t try. I run an insightful blog into the world of leadership and how to develop your own skills.

The path to improving your leadership need not be a reckless ‘risk it all’ path to success. You can steadily address each and every part of being a leader and work on those characteristics and behaviors in your own time. You’ll find that learning from a mixture of articles and real life role models will allow you to slowly morph into the leader you always dreamed of becoming. The written word is a great tool, but leadership contains so many intangible ideas, feelings and characteristics that sometimes you can do no better than simply watching a master at work.

To start you off, I’ll impart one of the key messages I have to give. The key to getting what you want from people is to make them feel important – so important infact, that they would gladly give you what you need in return. This simple sounding technique is harder to use in real life than it sounds however. Different people in life have different things that make them feel important. For instance a self-made millionaire would love to hear praise of what an inspired mind they are, or how they’ve done so well at grafting their own empire.

A charitable person on the other hand, may only need the sincere appreciation of those they have helped, in order to feel important. People who live in cultures of knowledge and ideas, such as Universities or any creative industries, feel important when their work is praised as being unique, fabulous, and a masterpiece.

Being able to read the signs when you talk to someone. To be able to sense what makes a person feel important is a skill that will generally come with age if you focus on it. Once you know – it is very easy to pander to this desire for importance, and fulfill their desires so much that you’ll soon see generosity unequalled by anything that has gone before it.

Good luck in your path towards leadership.

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