Leadership is something that doesn’t come easy to everyone. It can take years to perfect, marking the difference between basic management skills and becoming a strong, reliable leader.
To maximize your leadership potential, read on for some top tips!
1. Avoid the temptation to micro-manage
Micromanagement is unpleasant to work alongside, particularly for talented employees who are already doing their best to meet deadlines and achieve company goals. Detail is important, but there are ways to achieve greatness at your company without watching every single move your team makes.
Firstly, hire the right people. If you’ve made the right hires, you’ll know it – because you’ll start trusting them to take the reins. If you find yourself ‘hovering’, consider why. Knowing how to delegate is an essential skill for great leadership. Constantly checking what your employees are doing will only lead to insecurity and, ironically, could prompt inaction.
2. Embrace delegation – but carefully
You might be fearful of delegation in case it seems as though you are simply removing work from your own table. This isn’t quite accurate. Instead, delegating effectively is about playing to your strengths and the strengths of those people around you.
Knowing how to delegate will help to balance out the workplace and ensure all members of the team are involved in your success.
3. Understand your team and its talents
Micromanagement is the result of poor delegation. This can be overcome with a thoughtful, attentive understanding of your team and their core skills. Who can you train to take on smaller leadership roles? Who has the capacity to learn how to lead? Who is already a natural leader? These people can help to support you in your role.
What’s more, every workplace needs other skills rather than just an office that’s full of leaders. You need to know how to delegate for this too! What skills do you have to work with? How reasonable is the workload for your team members and how can you support them?
Understand that your role as a leader ultimately means you’ll probably be held accountable for things that go wrong. This is why you should get to know your team and work with their skills rather than trying to shoehorn them into positions that aren’t a great match.
4. Encourage (and welcome) feedback
Be receptive to feedback and put it into action when necessary. Are you being told the same things over and over? Do you constantly feel like you’re fighting against the tide?
It might be time to make some changes within the organization. Your team will appreciate it and your business will thrive as a result of staying open to and being interested in what you’re being told by the people who know the company best.
Not everything you’re told will be implementable – but just listening to your team will go a long way.