MUST REQUIREMENTS TO BE A GREAT LEADER

MUST REQUIREMENTS TO BE A GREAT LEADER

Md.Lutful Huda

General

1. Becoming a leader is not an easy process. You need to attain the quality and capability to be a leader through consistent training, learning and development. You have to think bigger than today. Tomorrow is coming quicker than ever before and people are looking for leaders who can provide competent direction and consistent encouragement. Here I like to share my thoughts on the must requirements to be a great leader:

Demonstrate Honesty and Integrity

2. Demonstrating consistent integrity, honesty, dedication, hardwork, transparency and professionalism is definitely going to build respect and trust around you. It will also help you to do the proper thing. Furthermore, by demonstrating full responsibility of and consistency in your actions will set the stage for the other ones to follow. Good leaders are those who are honest. Any business is a reflection of its leader and if you place honesty and ethical decisions at the centre of your vision and values, your team will follow. Another most respected and valued quality of a leadership professional is integrity. As one of the most important skills, integrity is about committing to something and then following through on your promises. This certainly builds trust and loyalty within your team. Demonstrating the courage and determination to pursue a course of action even when it presents complex challenges and obstacles and the outcome is far from certain. When you demonstrate confidence in your decisions, actions and the people who support you this in turn encourages others to have confidence in their own work and abilities. The best leaders are those who can remain in control and calm, even when those around them are having doubts or debating whether it is the right decision.

Demonstrate Trustworthiness

3. Employees need to feel comfortable coming to their leader with questions and concerns. It is important for a leader to demonstrate trustworthiness. Employees will only trust leaders they respect. By being open and honest, you will encourage the same sort of trustworthiness in your employees. When you are in a leadership role, trust is one of the most important attributes to display. If you cannot be trusted, the whole reputation of the business and your team are at risk, but in order to be trusted you must be trustworthy. 

Communicate Clearly and Accurately

4. Being able to communicate what you need both clearly and concisely is essential in any place. If you can’t communicate your vision, values and expectations to your team, it is nearer to impossible to work towards and achieve the same goals. Good leaders are those who provide quality training experiences for their team and create productive working environments. All of these require strong communication skills. As a leader, you need to be able to clearly and succinctly explain to your employees about any order or tasks so that your team members are crystal clear about what they have to do and what's expected from them. Additionally, it's very important to incorporate other elements of concrete, concise, coherent, correct, courteous, and complete communication. This will help to draw the confidence of other members in a team. Leaders should make themselves regularly available to discuss issues and concerns with employees.

Inspire Others

5. You should attain the quality to inspire people which can be achieved by purposeful, powerful, meaningful and passionate communication. Also, it's important that you demonstrate exceptional listening skills. Leadership is based upon a spiritual quality and the power to inspire as well as the power to inspire other people to follow.

Take Responsibility

6. A leader is responsible for both the successes and failures of his team. Therefore, you need to be willing to accept blame when something goes wrong. If your employees see their leader blaming others, they are most likely to lose respect for you. Accept mistakes and failures, and then devise clear solutions for improvement.

Motivate Others

7. Leaders need to inspire their workers to go the extra mile for their organization. There are a number of ways to motivate your team. You may build employee's self esteem through recognition and rewards or by giving employees new responsibilities. Your encouragement, listening, as well as asking sometimes the simplistic question 'How can I help?' may motivate much more than you might think. The more motivated the team gets, the quicker they will attain an overall objective and goal. Individual dedication to a group effort that's what will make a team work. Motivation can be demonstrated through remaining positive even in adverse situations, creating a relaxed and happy place to work.

Show Creativity

8. As a leader, you have to make a number of decisions that may not have a clear answer. Therefore you need to be able to think outside of the box. Learning to try nontraditional solutions will help you to solve an otherwise unsolvable problem. Most employees will also be impressed and inspired by a leader who doesn't always choose the safe or traditional path.

Gain Positivity Attitude

9. A positive attitude can go a long way in an office. You should be able to laugh at yourself when something doesn't go quite as planned. This helps create a happy and healthy work environment, even during busy and stressful periods. Simple acts like asking employees about their leave plans will develop a positive atmosphere in your team, and raise morale among team members. If employees feel that they work in a positive environment, they will be more likely to want to be at work, and will therefore be more willing to put in the long hours when needed. Mishaps and last minute changes always occur at work. Leaders need to be flexible, accepting whatever changes come their way. Employees will appreciate your ability to accept changes in stride and creatively problem-solve.

Solve Critical Issues

10. Concisely understanding and sharing the problem is going to permit for it to be resolved in the best possible way. Narrowing down to fewer options is going to help you to arrive at the best probable solution based upon your time and resource constraints. Eliminate the obstacles which are keeping your team members and employees from moving ahead to solve an issue. 

Be Committed

11. It is important for leaders to follow through with what they agree to do. You should be willing to put in the extra hours to complete an assignment. Employees will see this commitment and follow your example. Similarly, when you promise for anything, you should always follow through. A leader cannot expect employees to commit to their job and their tasks if he or she cannot do the same.

Delegate Responsibility

12. As a successful leader you must learn to delegate responsibility. You need to learn to trust your team to follow through your ideas and values. Trusting your team with an idea is a sign of strength in leadership. As a leader who everyone looks up to, it is your responsibility to delegate tasks with skill and care, assigning work to the right people. The more you take on yourself, the more quality and standards will suffer and productivity will decline. Leaders who try to take on too many tasks by themselves will struggle to get anything done. Therefore, you need to identify the skills of each of your employees, and assign duties to each employee based on his or her skill set. By delegating tasks to team members, you can focus on other important tasks.

Conclusion

13. Efficient leadership isn't about being liked or making speeches. Leadership will be defined by results, and not attributes. It will be possible to achieve with team involvement, process of goal setting, and an extremely supportive, rewarding, and focused team working environment. Making small changes can have a significant impact on your organisation. Being a great leader doesn’t happen overnight and it requires patience, determination and the drive to succeed.

Note:

Prepared by Major (R) Md. Lutful Huda, presently Chairman of TIDAC and Dreamwork Limited, Chief Editor of 'Crime and Judgement' Magazine

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