Are you a natural-born leader? Are you someone who can instruct, guide, and motivate others without even thinking about it? If not, don’t be discouraged. Leadership is a practiced and perfected form of behaviour, mannerisms, and traits that are continually improved.
And whether you’re aware or not, you may already be a leader to some degree – it may not be at your workplace, but maybe at home or amongst your friends!
Developing your leadership skills may be one of the most powerful moves you can make to transform your professional and personal life.
So, if you’re keen to take the next step in becoming a leader, then go on and read our 7 tips and tricks on developing your leadership skills!
1. Discover Your Leadership Style
The first step to improve your skills in leadership is to discover and understand which skills you already have, what your strengths are, and of course, your weaknesses.
Once you know all these, you can now begin to work on your strengths to your advantage, improving your weaknesses, and perfecting your overall abilities as a leader.
By then, you’ll more or less have a sense of your leadership style. Is your approach democratic, coaching, affiliative, visionary, pacesetting, or commanding?
Once you are able to identify and understand your leadership style, then you’ll be better equipped to develop your leadership skills!
2. Be Passionate
One of the best places to start in improving leadership skills is being passionate about the goals of your team.
Your genuine enthusiasm for the team and all its projects will definitely be contagious, and your interest and encouragement of your team member’s progress will make them feel appreciated and valued.
Just put yourself on your team’s shoes: would you rather seek guidance in a leader who is dismissive and does not show any concern at all about your progress and contributions? Or would you prefer a leader who is interested, passionate, and genuinely cares about the team and its goals?
3. Communication is Key!
You won’t be able to guide your team if you can’t communicate with them effectively. Take the time to improve your listening and communication skills and you’ll see the results ripple through your team.
You can bark out instructions that are crystal clear – team members are less likely to misinterpret you and execute everything smoothly.
The ability to communicate well can also mean that you, as a leader, are able to express sincere care and concern towards your group members, both verbally and non-verbally.
This is important for overall team morale. Not to mention, gaining your team member’s trust and confidence that you are indeed a leader that genuinely cares is a great thing for building awesome team camaraderie and chemistry.
4. Help Boost Creativity
As team leader, you’d always want to get the most out of each and every member of your team.
To do that, you need to ensure that they are stimulated intellectually and creatively.
Otherwise, you risk leading a group of bored and uninspired people who are most likely not able to contribute to your team’s cause at their maximum potential.
5. Set Goals and Follow Your Plans
You can’t work towards something great if you don’t know what it is. To fix that, leaders need to have a vision, a goal, or a plan to work towards with concrete action plans to back it all up.
Improve your leadership skills by being specific about this information to your team members. Include timelines, expectations, and objectives.
By doing this, your team will have a better grasp of the vision you have, which will then lead you to be all working on the same page – with you leading the helm.
6. Practice Discipline
A good leader must have discipline in his system. Developing discipline in your professional (and personal) life is a must – as not only does it make you a better person and leader overall, but it also inspires others or those who look up to you as their leader to practice discipline as well.
Your capacity to lead will be judged by the amount of discipline you display at work, among other things.
You can demonstrate discipline at work by meeting deadlines consistently, keeping appointments, starting/ending meetings on time, etc.
If you’re someone who’s naturally disorganised and lacks discipline, you can start small by developing good habits at home like waking up early consistently or sticking to a daily workout schedule.
This way, discipline would come naturally when you get into the workspace as you’re already a disciplined person outside of work.
7. Learn to Follow
Good leaders are also good followers. A leader shouldn’t feel threatened when someone disagrees with you, questions your thinking, or when ideas and opinions are put forward.
A good leader must have an open mind and is ready to listen to his team members when they have something to say. It won’t be easy, but if you do manage to become a good follower/listener, you’ll most likely earn the respect of your teammates and a harmonious working relationship will no doubt be forged.
Great leadership skills are essential to advance your career. However, it can also improve your personal life, as leadership is something you can bring even outside of work.
Interested in becoming a great leader? Formally develop your leadership skills!
