What is effective leadership?

Effective Leadership is the ability to successfully influence and support your team. It is important to point out that effective leadership is much more than just managing matters from the top, but rather a great leader is he who can negotiate with his team in many ways and this negotiation is only considered successful when he has a deep understanding of his values and is capable of passing them over to his counterparts.

 Being able to adapt your leadership approaches to accomplish this objective is very necessary. As well as giving the negotiator the opportunity to decide when to hold his position or when to give it up in order to reach a stronger agreement.

Great negotiators always aim to obtain long lasting agreements as they possess effective leadership skills that enable them to get through to the other side.   

Let’s go straight to the point… No successful organization could have reached what it is today without effective leadership. Effective leadership is always one of the main and fundamental drivers of growth, development and innovation.

It is noted that effective leadership is not about titles or even merits, as it is more important, efficient, and profound than that. It does not have a fixed plan or come in a specific format. But it depends on the culture and needs of the organization.

What are the characteristics of an effective leader?

Although a single correct way to effectively lead a team does not exist, there are similar characteristics that are cultivated by successful leaders and managers that you should undertake if you want to develop your leadership skills:

1. The ability to have an impact on others

At the beginning of your career, you may practice authority by being the person that everybody goes to on a particular topic within your organization, or by actively listening and building consensus among your team. Later on, as you are progressing, you may exercise influence by knowing how to articulate the direction you think the company should be heading to in the future.

This means you have to understand what resources are valued by people when it concerns achieving a sense of safety and self-respect according to Julie Battilana, a professor at Harvard Business School.

You only have to concentrate on understanding your team’s motivations and encourage them to share their opinions which allows you to use this knowledge to implement change and show that their voices matter.

• Transparency – to an extent-

Transparency is an essential part of building trust. The more open you are about the goals or challenges that face the organization, it becomes easier for the team to understand their role and how each of them can contribute individually to the success of the company in general. This feeling of respect and validation can lead to greater levels of engagement by employees

Harvard Business School professor Anthony Mayo says “In order for people to follow you, they have to understand what you’re communicating to them, so they are willing to follow you in making that trend a reality, also,  your communications should meet people where they are, and give them an idea of where the direction the organization is headed. Then provide them with a roadmap of how to bridge the gap between the position of the organization now and where you want to take it”.

Ethan Bernstein, associate professor of organizational behavior at Harvard Business School said “While transparency is often intended to foster participation, knowledge exchange, and accountability, too much of it can have the opposite effect”.

3. Encouraging taking risks for the purpose of innovation

Experimentation is not a bad thing; in fact, it is very important for establishing a competitive advantage for the company as well as maintaining it. Great leaders acknowledge that so they encourage creativity and risk taking within their organizations.

Mayo states in organizational leadership that “you can’t wave a magic wand or dictate people that they have to be more creative and then wake up the next morning to find people taking risks and trying new ideas”.

Instead, Leaders should actively work to endorse a culture of innovation by supporting experimentation, defying unwritten rules and embracing mistakes. These steps, backed by information, could lead to innovation that would not have emerged otherwise.

After all, no great accomplishments can be achieved if companies are committed to safety measures. There is a need for experimentation in order to reach the noble business goals. If the intentions are good, failures are usually considered valuable learning experiences.

4. Integrity and Accountability

One of the most important aspects of leadership is demonstrating integrity. In a survey conducted by consulting firm Robert Half, 75% of the employees ranked “integrity” as the most important trait for a leader, and in a separate survey conducted by Sonny Giles, creator of Quantum Leadership, 67 % of participants ranked “high ethical standards “as the most important quality for leadership.

5. The ability to act decisively

In a complex and rapidly changing business environment, effective leaders sometimes need to make strategic decisions quickly- even before needed data is provided.

Once a decision is made, you have to stick to it unless there is reasonable purpose to change it. Your target is to boost the organization forward. This will not happen if you cannot make necessary decisions without hesitation whereas timely decision making is an essential skill for an effective leader.

6. Demonstrate flexibility

Not every decision you make will lead to success, there will be times when you will be met with failure; It’s your job as a leader to demonstrate flexibility. Let’s look at what happened to the Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton as an example. When his ship was surrounded and crushed by icebergs, the original mission – crossing Antarctica – suddenly became irrelevant.

His new mission was to bring his team of 28 men home alive, and to do that, he needed to quickly lead his team through the crisis.

This illustrates three key components of Shackleton’s leadership approach that all leaders can learn from when confronting major challenges:

• Constantly evaluate and re-evaluate your leadership approach

• Stay committed to your primary goal while practicing flexibility

• Maintaining the belief of your team’s mission through managing them collectively and individually to achieve this mission

How to become a better leader?

Not everybody can become a good leader. It is not easy.  Every effective leader needs to work hard to achieve his goals and vision.

Effective leaders are the key to higher productivity and better self-esteem of the members of the organization. So, do not waste any time, especially, in most cases, time needed to make fast decisions, or you might not avoid missing a lot of opportunities.

Also, effective leadership, at its core, includes leading by setting an example for others. It is difficult to respect someone who asks everyone to be on time, or to work to achieve a certain goal if that person is not willing to show up on time or participate in the work himself.

Effective leaders also, have good problem solving skills. Or at least, they don’t focus on the problem but rather on the solution. Maybe they don’t always have the answers but they will always work on finding them. They always look forward and focus on their primary goals as they usually look at the bigger picture. Thus, in order to achieve this goal, they always set the priorities and determine the tasks that need to be done first.

Effective leadership is about recognizing the job that is done by each individual. So, good leaders never say and will never say: “It’s just a job” or “I just work here”, they care about what they do, they care about the organization, and they care about the people they lead and work with.

You’ll often hear the story of your manager who stole an idea, or took credit for someone else’s achievement. Good leaders share the glory, and are quick to give credit to a team member or colleague for a good idea. They know that success comes through teamwork, and they respect contribution and the work that is done by others.

Learn with us how to improve your leadership skills

Yes, it will take time and commitment to improve your leadership skills and enhance your style as a leader,

But with Innovation and Creativity Training Institute (ICI) we guarantee that it will happen

 start a training journey with us by practicing well planned effective leadership strategies designed to advance your leadership personality and optimize your performance within your team.

 No matter what your position, you will gain the tools to accelerate both personal and professional change

If what you are doing isn’t working, then try something else