A leader needs an effective leadership style to get extraordinary achievements from ordinary people.
It is important to develop an effective leadership style that suits different situations, depending upon the need of the team or the team members. Great leaders choose their style based on the circumstances and the end goal.
Some people may be born with the natural ability to lead. But anyone can train themselves to become a leader.
If you run a business, it is imperative you develop good leadership abilities, so you can coach your employees. This would also help you avoid common business errors, ensuring business success down the line.
According to Zenger Folkman’s research, leaders who excel at coaching have three times more employees that go the extra mile. So you need to figure out what your effective leadership style is.
Some entrepreneurs prefer to stay fixated on the business side of things, while they designate the leading to someone else. A popular entrepreneur who practices such a style is Neil Patel.
In one of his blog posts, Patel reveals that he leaves the managing and “human resource stuff” to his co-founder Hiten Shah. This lets him enough time to focus on improving his skill sets without having to worry about day-to-day business operations.
So, leadership styles basically differ. What works for Neil may not work for you. You know that your leadership style is effective if it achieves the following three things:
1. Your Team is Motivated
Nowadays, many people get jobs solely to earn a living, and so there comes a time when they may become slightly disinterested.
There are many factors hampering employee productivity at work. More than the employee, it’s the leader or owner who is impacted more. Revenue and profit take a hit.
A good leader must create the right atmosphere to inspire others.
One thing you must recognize as a leader is that no matter how much talent you have, you need good people that are willing to get the job done.
The idea is to inspire your team and make them happy.
According to a 2017 study, happy workers are 10% more productive at work, which means that by merely motivating your employees, you can make a better profit.
Some of the most successful entrepreneurs we know have always attributed their business success to their teams.
The late Steve Jobs once stated that “One person never does great things in business. They’re done by a team of people.”
Even Jeff Bezos insists that employees who think and feel like the owner will care enough to make it the best it can be.
He takes it one step further by actually making his employees owners. In one of his letters, he confesses that Amazon’s success was largely due to their “ability to attract and retain a motivated employee base, each of whom must think like, and therefore must actually be an owner.″
Even if you’re not giving out stock to employees, your leadership style should rub off on them so that they have a stake in the success of your business.
2. People Want to Communicate With You
Employees will rather have a leader they can talk to about anything. But once they deduce that they can’t, they crawl back into their shell.
Employees prefer their employers to be upfront.
This might be hard for a lot of leaders, especially those that have developed the ‘under the radar business approach. But communication across both sides of the table can be everything.
You should be willing to tell them the truth, good or bad.
Honesty in a leader can only cause a massive boost of confidence in employees, especially since 82% of people do not think that leaders are capable of telling the truth.
Don’t expect your employees to suddenly start coming to you just because you have told them that they could trust you.
It takes time and consistent action to guide them toward sharing with you.
They will judge how you have reacted to negative situations. The next time they get into trouble, they will know whether coming to you is the right thing to do.
If you notice them approaching you about issues, then you are doing something right.
3. Making Mistakes is Okay
Innovation makes businesses work.
And it doesn’t come suddenly. You have to test out new ideas, modify them and try again until you finally get it right.
So one thing is certain: Mistakes are bound to happen.
So what happens when your employees seem to be flawless? Something must be fishy.
No matter the number of geniuses you hire to work for you, it can’t all play out so well, lest it becomes too good to be true.
One reason some employees feel they can’t afford to be wrong is that their bosses have failed to lead by example in that regard.
According to a UK study, employees and their employers have a significant difference in opinion on how often the leaders admit that they are wrong.
It sends the message that there’s no room for error.
So when an error does occur, such employees are likely to withhold the situation from their leaders for fear of being chastised.
Film Director Andrew Stanton is the complete opposite. He encourages his employees to fall and fail. And he believes that they are not living to their full potential if everything they do is error-free.
When your leadership style accommodates setbacks and errors, it helps employees to fearlessly take up good ideas and turn them into classics.
Wrapping Up
You can’t master the secrets of good leadership in a jiffy.
While it helps that there are plenty of schools out there to help you grow, you cannot develop quality leadership styles without real-world experience.
Whatever your leadership style is, the results are usually similar. You either or become an influencer, someone who is always inspiring.
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Is Your Leadership Style Effective?
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I just feel like it is always good to lead by example. You can’t expect people to do things that you yourself are not willing to do and you can’t expect people not to do the things that they see you doing. This is true for leaders in the workplace and even good for parents as well. I try to lead by example at work and also in my home.