To be a good leader is not a day's work, neither is it something that someone is born with. Rather, it is a conscious choice that one has to make in a particular leadership position. You will agree with me that what makes a leader different from a ruler is not the position they occupy, but how well they are occupying the position. Some leaders see themselves as lords and as such, impose their wish on their followers and instead of gaining support, they will gain fear. Of course, someone that supports you will provide much assistance (even when you are not present) than someone that fears you. Here, we shall be taking the concluding part of the qualities to have as a leader so as to do well in a leadership position, as continued from our last episode.
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1. Must be innovative
A good leader should understand that the world is evolving at a fast pace and as such, they will need the innovation to match the speed of the emergence of new trends. As a good leader, you should not hold on tightly to a particular format simply because you used it in the past and it worked. You will be surprised that the format may just have a limited time it will remain valid, after which it may go into obsoletion. A good leader should be opened to welcoming new innovations from others - including his followers and subordinates. You must not necessarily be a genius to be in the leadership position, you only need to be open to new innovations.
To get new innovations, you should be open-minded. Try to engage people more in an intelligent discourse. With this, you will tend to get more ideas on how it should be done and you will have variety of options to choose from. It is true that no one has an unlimited amount of knowledge and no one knows it all, but one of the reasons you have people around you is to rub minds with them to get their own view of the world and then welcome their own idea. That you take a decision from the idea that was brought by your follower does not make you any less of a leader, but it actually makes you a good leader.
2. Delegate effectively
You have to understand that as a leader, you cannot carry the entire duties of the organisation on your shoulders. Imagine in a football match and the captain decides to do everything including playing attacking, defending and goalkeeping, the team will be weakened by it and may spell defeat for them. In the same way, as a leader, if you want to get everything done by yourself, you may end up not doing it well. So you have to learn to delegate duties wisely and with discretion. The ability to know how to effectively, timely, and efficiently delegate duties with wisdom makes one a good leader.
A good leader should be able to understand the concept of division of labour and how it can increase the productivity and the result of any organisation. While delegating, you have to put into consideration skills, abilities, and other factors to enable one to effectively function. If you put someone that is skilled in the tech field in the marketing department, you have not delegated well. A good leader has to consider strengths and weaknesses and then make up for lapses.
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3. Excellent decision making and bearing responsibilities
One thing that makes one a good leader is their ability to make decision for the utmost good of the organisation without bringing in emotions, sentiments, or bias to it. When taking decision, a good leader should be able to visualise the end result of such decision, and if the result will be worth it, then it will be taken. As a good leader, you should not only be responsible for the decision that you take, but you should be responsible for the consequences of such decision. If you are a leader enough to take decisions, then you should be leader enough to bear the consequences.
It is worthy to note that when you know that you will bear the responsibility of the consequences of your actions and inactions, you will know how to act and when to act. More so, it takes an extensive amount of mental maturity to welcome the responsibilities of an action instead of giving excuses or trading blames. Even if the action does not yield the intended result, it is by taking responsibilities that you will be able to figure our why it did not work the first time, then you learn from the mistakes to make it work the next time.
Thanks for reading