Being in a leadership position does not make one a good leader, this is because good leadership is not gifted, it is also not something someone is born with but what one builds over time. We have taken a look at some of the leadership qualities a good leader should have in our previous episode, like the fact that a good leader has to be able to motivate their followers, a good leader should also imbibe high level of honesty and integrity. Then finally, we talked about the need for a good leader to have a listening ear. Here, we shall consider some more qualities a good leader should have.
Image from Pixabay
1. Being flexible at all times
This is very important because the world is very dynamic and continually evolving, so also should your methods be dynamic. As a good leader, you should not be straitjacketed into one particular school of thought, you should learn to try out new things, apply new methods, welcome new ideas from others. That you did something with a particular format in the past is not a guarantee that the same format may also produce the same result today. If Coca-Cola as we have it now did not upgrade their service delivery to have it in bottles and they stuck with dispensing it from a jar, by now their sales would be so limited that they may have even gone out of the market.
Flexibility is very necessary for a good leader and this is as a result of being open-minded. The idea may remain the same, the goal may be rigid, the vision may be constant, but the methods and the processes should be dynamic. After all, what matters is that you arrive at the destination through the best possible route. The truth is that, for everything that you want to do and for any accomplishment you want, there is always a better way to get it done. So as a leader, you should be open to welcome other ways of doing things because your own methods may not even be the best at the moment.
2. Humility
Obviously, you need to be humble before you can be teachable. As a leader, you need to understand that you are not the possessor of the entire knowledge in the world and that you can make mistakes. This will make you to know when to be more teachable. It is always believed that the leaders that are humble often make a very good leaders. Humility does not mean lack of courage, it does not also mean that you do not have a certain degree of ego. Humility simply means that you do not overestimate yourself and you do not overinflate your ego.
It is worthy to note that as a leader, your leadership should be for transformation not to dominate your followers with your will. As a leader, you are not meant to be reminding your subordinates that you are the leader. As a matter of fact, if you feel the need to constantly remind people that you are the leader, then the most logical explanation is that you are beginning to lose your leadership position. You should also know that humility does not make you any less, neither does it make you weak, rather it makes you stronger.
Image from Pixabay
3. Empathy
As a good leader, you should be able to understand the needs (including emotional, intellectual, psychological, physical) of your followers - this is empathy. In this present world, it looks like people are becoming less sensitive to the needs of others, and that is the reason, as a good leader, you need to have empathy because it will be appreciated in this world that is ladened with emotional insensitivity from many leaders. As a good leader, you need to learn to see the world from other people's perspectives to know how they feel at any point.
As a leader, it is easier to relate better with people and connect more with them if you have empathy, because you can inspire them towards the achievement of a common goal. You should not always communicate because you want to pass instructions or because you want to express, but you can also communicate to understand the perspective and views of other - this will make you a better leader.
Thanks for reading