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Effective leadership key to any organisation

Masihul Huq Chowdhury
08 Feb 2022 00:00:00 | Update: 08 Feb 2022 00:15:17
Effective leadership key to any organisation

Leadership skills are skills you use when organizing other people to reach a shared goal. Whether you’re in a management position or leading a project, leadership skills require you to motivate others to complete a series of tasks, often according to a schedule. Leadership is not just one skill but rather a combination of several different skills working together.

Effective leaders are essential to any organization. They can help build strong teams within a business and ensure projects, initiatives or other work functions are performed successfully. Good leaders have strong interpersonal and communication skills, and anyone can become one by learning how to exercise and hone leadership abilities.

Most people have seen the results of both effective and ineffective leaders on the job. Good leaders increase employee engagement, support a positive environment and help remove obstacles for their team. Good leadership is also contagious, inspiring colleagues to apply positive leadership traits in their own work.

Almost any positive soft skill might be considered a leadership skill. For example, active listening helps leaders bring projects to completion by hearing the ideas and concerns of the team. Empathy, for example, helps leaders understand how their team feels about their workload, environment and workplace relationships.Here is a list of must-have leadership skills that may prove valuable to anyone applying for work or looking to advance in a career: 

Effective leaders are those who can make decisions quickly with the information they have. Effective decision-making comes with time and experience. As you become more familiar with your specific industry, you’ll be able to make decisions faster, even when you don’t have all of the necessary information. Decisiveness is seen as a valuable leadership skill because it can help move projects along faster and improve efficiency. 

Having integrity as a leader, not only encourages the most truthful and fair practice and outcome, but also, sends a strong and positive example to your team. Leadership requires the ability to build and maintain a strong and collaborative team of individuals working toward the same goal. Team building requires other leadership strengths, like effective communication skills and conflict resolution. Relationship building is potentially one of the most important skills to a leadership role as it makes communication of tasks, responsibilities and goals more effective. Once you understand each other, you will benefit by being able to assess strengths, delegate tasks and complete your goals more seamlessly.

Good leaders are skilled at problem-solving issues that arise on the job. Effective problem solving often requires staying calm and identifying a step-by-step solution. Problem solving skills can help leaders make quick decisions, resolve obstacles with their team and external teams alike, and ensure projects are completed on time, according to the specifications. Problem-solving skills help you determine the source of a problem and find an effective solution. Although problem solving is often identified as its own separate skill, there are other related skills that contribute to this ability.

Being a dependable leader means that people can trust and rely on you. A dependable person follows through on plans and keeps promises. The strong relationships built by a dependable leader create a resilient team that can work through difficulties that may arise. Being a dependable professional means meeting deadlines, being straightforward, coming through on obligations and when you can’t meet a promise or a goal, communicating this early on and having a backup plan.

One skill that differentiates leadership from many other competencies is the ability to teach and mentor. Effectively teaching colleagues or direct reports to grow in their careers helps organizations scale. Often, this skill requires that leaders think less about themselves and more about how to make their team as a whole successful. 

While you will use different styles of leadership for different occasions, identifying your leadership style can help you refine specific skills that will be effective for your team or project. You might use your team or project goals to help identify what leadership styles will be most effective for you. 

Research what characteristics, methods and practices define each style and determine which one best defines yours. You might use a combination of different styles.

Do you meet all the skills and expectations of your leadership style? If not, what goals could you set for yourself to improve?

Whether you employ a mix of different leadership styles or focus on one, is your approach effective at reaching your goals? Ask your team if they feel motivated and productive in their work environment, and if not, what they think could make it more so. It could mean focusing on different methods or a switch to another leadership style altogether.

You can practice good leadership skills in any role, at any level. For example, showing up on time to meetings and turning in work on schedule shows dependability. Offering support and coaching to less experienced colleagues is also an example of leadership. If it seems like a good fit for you, you might consider seeking out leadership roles to develop and practice your leadership skills.

Here are some examples of additional ways you can develop your leadership skills: 

Find resources like books or podcasts about leadership.

A self-study on leadership may help you get a better understanding of how to develop your leadership skills. Many books on the subject exist, including the 1937 Dale Carnegie book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, which has been a favorite among many business leaders for decades. There are also many podcasts and video workshops you can find offered at no cost online. 

Participate in leadership training courses or workshops.

You can find both in-person and online courses that help teach leadership skills. In-person courses, in particular, often include practice sessions and role play. 

Find leadership activities outside of work.

If you have trouble finding leadership opportunities on the job, you may be able to find them outside of your workplace. This can include taking the lead in organizing activities or work outings with your colleagues. At work, there are several leadership-building activities you can try to help you build your skills, while mentoring your team to build theirs.

Lao Tzu was a senior contemporary of Confucius, who was said to have consulted him (Confucius) on certain ritual matters; however, their respective philosophies, Taoism and Confucianism, were two distinct responses to the social and political conditions of life in China during that time. While Confucianism addresses conduct, social relationships and society, Taoism deals more with individualistic character and a spiritual, nature-centered approach to life.  When Lao Tzu was eighty years old he left Chu, for what is now Tibet, to retire, saddened and disillusioned that society, at large, was unwilling to follow the path to natural goodness. Before he left, upon the request of a guard Yin Xi, he recorded his teachings in the form of the Tao Te Ching (The Way and Its Power).

Here are some of Lao Tzu's most significant teachings according to Derek Lin and his translation of the Tao te Ching: Non-contention - Lao Tzu contended that violence controlled, or otherwise, can only cause negative consequences. The Tao ideal is to solve problems peacefully.

Non-action – The foolish expend a great deal of time and energy trying to do everything and end up achieving nothing. Conversely, those who are truly wise appear to do very little, yet they achieve whatever they want. This seemingly magical circumstance is possible when one is in tune with the Tao and acts without attachments.

Non-intention – We often perform virtuous deeds hoping to garner praise or recognition, however, this is not virtue at all. True virtue occurs when actions flow forth naturally and without conscious effort or thought.

Simplicity – The basis for our reality and existence is fundamental and uncomplicated. We humans create a lot of trouble for ourselves by making everything more complex than it needs to be. If we learn to simplify our lives, we can experience profound satisfaction that is infinitely more meaningful than the rewards of the material world.

Wisdom – While logic has application in human affairs, it isn’t everything. There are limits to what we can understand through rationality and reasoning. To transcend those limits, we must connect fully to our intuition. That is the key to insight as opposed to knowledge and the difference between living the Tao and reading about it.

Humility - The more you learn, the more you realize how much more there is to learn. This realization invariably makes you humble. On the other hand, arrogance and egotism come from ignorance, that is, knowing a little and assuming you know a lot.

Duality - Lao Tzu pointed out that every quality possesses meaning only by the existence of its opposite. Something can only be big if there is something else that is small by comparison. "Good" exists in the world so long as "evil" exists as well. One cannot do without the other.

 

The writer is MD, CEO of Community Bank. He can be contacted at masihul1811@gmail.com

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