7 ways to improve leadership skills
A leader of a team is like a captain of this ship. The team’s success or failure depends on the effectiveness and expertise of its leader. When given a chance to lead a team, how do you ensure that you do a good job of it? You can follow these 7 simple tips in our daily lives to hone your leadership skills.
1. Self-analysis
It is very important to do a self-analysis and take stock of your strengths and weaknesses to perform your leadership roles to perfection. If you are good at number crunching, you can train your team to understand the numbers more and infer important points from them. If you lack listening skills or people management skills, you can work on them to consciously to ensure that you create a comfortable atmosphere for your team to work in.
2. Setting smart goals
If you want to improve your leadership skills, you have to set SMART goals for your team members. The term SMART stands for specific, measurable, acceptable, realistic and time-bound. This way, you assign reasonable goals to your team and give them a considerable amount of time to complete them. Your team will respect you for not pressurizing them too much and by giving them goals that are in line with their skill sets.
3. Constant guidance throughout the process
A good leader is not one who calls for a team meeting, assigns tasks and pressurizes his team about the delivery dates. In the course of the project, your team may have lots of challenges and problems to complete the task within deadlines. This is where you have to be there for them and guide them to combat these challenges successfully. You should assure them that they can fall back on you for support if there is a problem.
4. Giving freedom to work for your team
Leadership doesn’t involve your growth alone; you are considered an excellent leader if you are able to guide your team members to grow as well. How can you do that? By giving them the freedom to work and allowing them to explore their creativity to the maximum extent possible, of course! Encourage them to come up with innovative ideas and give them responsibility as well, to do their jobs well.
5. Assume accountability
While you make your team members responsible for their individual tasks, you should assume accountability for the overall project. You should never give up on your team before your senior management, clients and other stakeholders.
6. Help your team to keep going
As a leader, you will face lots of challenges in your project. It is natural for your team to feel dejected and demotivated when things don’t go their way. To improve your leadership skills, one of the first things that you should do is to motivate your team and keep them as positive and confident as possible. When you sound confident, it will certainly rub on them as well and lift their spirits.
7. Be a good listener
You should be available for your team at all times. That’s the mark of a good leader. Your team should feel confident and comfortable enough to approach you when they have an issue. You should never be too busy to hear them out, and you should come up with practical and long-lasting solutions for their problems, at all times.
(Author unknown)