How To Be An Effective Leader

There is more to leadership than just simply having the title and authority. There’s a saying: “leaders are born not made” and it might explain why only a small percentage of leaders become ‘great leaders’. However all leaders can be effective. Former US secretary of state, Collin Powell said in 2005: “Effective Leaders are made, not born” and they know: “how to define their mission, convey it to their subordinates and ensure they have the right tools and training needed to get the job done.”

Here are a couple of leadership traits of many successful CEOs, managers, and business owners:

Leading With Passion

Every lightbulb idea turns on with a burning passion. According to Ryan Allis, CEO of a growing startup company Connect, being passionate about achieving a certain goal will make it much easier to lead a team towards it. Without passion as your motivation, your efforts in running an organization with a team in tow would all be in vain. Make sure that what you are doing is aligned to your personal mission as a member of the society.

Hiring The Right People

To become a good leader, you need a group of people to help you achieve your goals – and they shouldn’t be just any group of people. Elon Musk, renowned CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, even advises employers to hire great people, even those who are smarter than them. Doing otherwise will only cost your company so much in the future.

Aside from looking through a job candidate’s qualifications and experience, it is also advised to conduct a marijuana drug test screening during the hiring process. Since drug abuse in the workplace has been known to affect productivity and compromise the company’s safety, ensuring that employers pass a hair drug test would be a viable preventative measure.

Building Connections With Your Team

Being a leader does not mean you instantly gain your team’s trust; you need to earn it. As a first step, a good leader needs to learn how to connect to each member of his team. Employees easily ease up to a “more human” leader, who is one that exhibits positivity, compassion, empathy, and humility. Establishing personal connections is vital in creating a mutual trust across the company. At the end of the day, a trusting team makes a happy team and an inspiring and effective leader.

Giving Better Feedback

It’s one thing to give feedback to your workers, and it’s another to know how to effectively deliver it. Feedback not only helps employees to know their mistakes, but also helps them to develop as professionals. When we come to think of it, employees love getting feedback, but not when it comes off as rude or negative.

As a good leader, give feedback that’s void of any personal biases. It’s best to focus on the behavior rather than the person himself. As much as possible, avoid vague comments, but don’t beat around the bush. More importantly, think about giving feedback as a coaching rather than a scolding. This will encourage employees to learn from their mistakes and to improve their performance in the future.

At the end of the day, the best advice to give leaders is to lead by example. Being an inspiration for your team does not only make you an effective leader, but also a happy and fulfilled one. So how do leaders lead themselves?