Leadership

 

What is Leadership?

Leadership is a practical skill, with an ability to lead, influence or guide others to be involved in an action.

 

Roles of a leader

1. Provide a Vision
2. Establish Structure and Communication
3. Be a role model
4. Inspire and Motivate
5. Delegate and Empower
6. Effective Time Management

 

Provide a vision

A good leader must provide a vision, your team needs a clear vision to run with. As the leader you must possess a vision that will make your team and followers to be ready to go on the journey with you.

 

Establish Structure and Communication

Communication is key, as a leader you must provide a good communication channel to ensure effectiveness of achieving your vision. It is therefore imperative to put in place an organization structure that helps every member of the team to stay on course, working together to achieve a common goal

 

Be a role model

It is ideal to be a role model to your team members, let them see a leader in you. Although there is different leadership style, it is however very effective to be an example to your team members; be decisive, accountable, listen, respect and lead by example.

 

Inspire and Motivate

As a leader you should live by the definition, which is inspire, influence and guide others to participate in a common effort. Good leaders use effective communication and motivation technique to facilitate action by their team.

 

Delegate and Empower

Good leaders surround themselves with the right people, this help them to lead instead of managing resources. They therefore empower their team and delegate responsibilities. As a good leader you must learn to delegate responsibilities to your team members.

 

Effective Time Management

Effective leaders understand the place of time and manages it effectively. Good leaders sees time as a currency and invest in it wisely. As a leader you must be able to give a good account of your time, achieving results.

 

 

 

Characters of a Good Leader

Leaders are best described as the driver of an initiative, what makes a good leader are the soft skills the leader possesses and applies in the process of running the initiative

1. Integrity
2. Communication
3. Awareness
4. Relationship Building
5. Innovation
6. Learning Ability
7. Influence
8. Empathy
9. Courage
10. Respect

 

 

Leadership styles, effectiveness, pros and cons

1. Transactional
2. Transformational
3. Servant Leadership
4. Democratic Leadership
5. Autocratic Leadership
6. Bureaucratic Leadership
7. Laissez-Faire Leadership
8. Charismatic Leadership

 

Transactional

Sometimes Effective

A transactional leadership style is based on transactions. I give you and you do this in return.

Leaders with this style rewards their team based on what they have done or delivered.

Transactional leaders engage the team with roles and responsibilities for each member but this can encourage bare-minimum work if their employees know how much their effort is worth all the time

 

Pros: Tasks are clearly described so team members are not likely to be confused or involved in guess work.

Con: Due to rigid expectations, creativity and innovation are not encouraged

 

You are a Transactional Leader if…

• You always seek to engage people with the mind of paying them for the engagement
• You frequently use threat as a means of motivating your team
• You constantly come up with ideas to motivate or encourage your team, like a special party or hangout based on milestones the team achieved

 

Transformational Leadership

Sometimes Effective

 

Transformational Leaders endeavor to lead their organization by inspiring the team members. These leaders are centered on making improvements and finding better ways to get things done. They tend to inspire other people to work on their own and be the best in their fields

 

Pros: Leaders are able to establish a high level of trust with employees and rally them around a shared vision

 

Con: In a structured organization where processes are valued, the lead to change things might not be generally accepted.

 

You are a Transformational Leader if

• You look deeply into process and think of how it could be better
• You always encourage others to get out of their comfort zone to be the best they can ever be.
• It excites you when other achieve great feats.

 

Servant Leadership

Servant leaders don’t think about themselves first, they think about how to serve others then lead. This type of leaders is always dedicated to elevating and developing people who follow them.

 

This type of leaders can sacrifice anything for their team members or followers even if it means their last food.

Pro: These leaders boost the morale of their followers and leads to a high level of trust

 

Con: It’s challenging because prioritizing the needs of others above ours does not come as natural thing for most people.

Sometimes such leaders are taken advantage of

 

You might be a Servant leader if…

If you will always ask the question, “How may I be of help”

You have a natural tendency to sacrifice anything for other people

You are always all out to help other people achieve their dreams

 

Democratic Leadership

Commonly Effective

Democratic leadership style also known as participative leadership runs the group or organization like a democratic movement.

 

These leaders value the ideas and participation of every member of the team. They hardly make any decision without sampling opinion and they will go with an initiative based on the input of their team members or followers.

 

These leaders irrespective of their technical expertise or being knowledgeable in their areas of endeavors they value a collaborative approach of getting things done.

 

Pro: Innovation and creativity are welcomed; this most times helps the team achive greater feats

 

Con: Constantly trying to get things done based on the idea of many people may be inefficient. Like the saying, to many cooks spoils the soup.

 

You might be a Democratic leader if…

You always conduct meeting such that you take everyone’s opinion

You hardly take any decision without having the input of others

 

Autocratic Leadership

Rarely Effective

In this leadership approach, the leader believes it must always be done in his own way or no other way can be effective.

 

Autocratic leaders belive they have the absolute power and will always make decisions irrespective of what other people believe and expects the people to get it done in his own way.

 

Pro: Decisions are made quickly, there is a strategy to follow and the results are easily measurable

 

Con: Team members usually feel used, ignored and sometimes abused.

 

You are an Autocratic Leader if…

You always make decision on behalf of your team

You don’t like it when other people question your decision especially when you believe you had made the best on behalf of the people.

 

Bureaucratic Leadership

Bureaucratic leaders follow set rules, they are leaders that will rather read how it should be done or receive instructions and follow it to the later.

 

These leaders usually function based on assigned responsibilities or titles rather than their natural leadership traits. They follow guidelines for their roles and responsibilities and exectute their functions living by the rules.

 

Pro: They are stable leaders because they lead by the rules and structure that defines their functions.

 

Con: This leadership style tends to be inflexible and may never give room to creativity and innovation

 

You might be a Bureaucratic Leader if…

You always love to get things done based on laid down principle

You get confirmation from people who have walked the path before setting out on your journey

 

Laissez-Faire Leadership

Sometimes Effective

This leadership style coined from a french word “leave it be” is the mode where the leader is likely to provide tools and resources and then step back for their team members to make decision and get things done. These leaders don’t micromanage their team but will rather empower them to be creative, solve problems and achieve results.

 

Pro: The trust and independence most times empowers the team to be innovative and creative there by sometime achieving greater results.

 

Con: Chaos can set in at times especially when the team is not organized

You might be a Laissez-Faire if…

You are always setting platforms for people to function, you mainly get involved for important tasks especially at the beginning and end of the project

You hardly talk at meeting updates; you watch your team members talk on how to get everything done

 

Charismatic Leadership

Charismatic Leaders clearly lay down their visions and get others excited about it through their communication and persuasion skills.

 

These leaders get things done by using their personality to inspire and motivate the entire team to get the vision executed

 

Pro: Charismatic leaders are inspirational; therefore they motivate the team to achieve the goal of the organization

 

Con: The leader most time is focused on the goal and thereby don’t pay attention to some other factors that can make the organization ineffective

 

You might be a charismatic leader if…

 

You find it very easy to convince people to walk your talk

You are usually the person who is likely to give a toast or speech at an event.

 

 

Hands-on

• Leadership Skills to develop
• Leadership Style Assesment
• Choosing Leadership Style
  • Know yourself
    • What are your dominant leadership styles?
    • How do people describe the strengths of your leadership style?
    • Take a leadership style assessment (R)
  • Understand the different styles
    • Understand the leadership styles above
    • Match styles with leaders you know
  • Practice makes a leader
    • What new leadership style will you like to adopt
    • What skills do you need to develop to achieve it
    • How do you live the reality and practice it (People can smell fake leadership style, the more you practice it becomes your natural self)
  • Develop your leadership agility
    • My Leadership Resolution
    • Identify skills you need to develop to achieve your leadership style