Effective Leadership

Whether you are a sole-proprietor or the owner/manager of a large business, you are a leader. As such it is important to develop the necessary skills that will extract the best performance from yourself, your employees and partners if you wish to see your business flourish.

An effective leader must be able to interact with employees, peers, superiors and many other individuals both inside and outside the organization. Leaders must gain the support of many people to meet or exceed established objectives. This means that they must possess or develop a unique understanding of people. Accomplish that and success is imminent. The following tips may help you avoid some of the pitfalls that could cause you to lose both the trust and respect of employees and those you work with.

• Show consistency and fairness in your treatment of employees and associates.

Do you vary your approach with employees, being lenient with some and strict with others? There is a fine line between treating all employees exactly the same and showing consistency in the treatment of employees. Employees are all individuals with different backgrounds, different values, different goals, different ideas and different motivational factors. The ability to recognize the differences in people and apply variable leadership methodologies is an important characteristic of effective leadership.

That being said, it is extremely important that a leader does not show favouritism and give preferential treatment to one over another. A lack of consistency in the leader’s treatment of employees destroys teamwork and trust.    Do not give special privileges unless a special situation warrants it, and everyone understands it.

• Being able to collaborate and share ideas without being threatened creates an atmosphere of cooperation and team spirit.

Sharing your thoughts, experiences, knowledge along with coaching and mentoring is showing confidence and self respect. This supports a culture of camaraderie and expands the chance of further development. If part of a larger organisation or franchise network, share information whenever issues in your realm of responsibility affect operations in other managers’ or franchisees’ areas.

• Be as sure as possible you can keep any promises you make.

Take making promises seriously. View a promise as a commitment made on the understanding that circumstances might arise that would make it impossible to keep it. Make those circumstances very clear to the person at the time promises are made. Breaking a promise can lead to a loss of respect and a questioning of your integrity. Don’t make promises you know you probably cannot keep.

If circumstances arise that prevent you from keeping a promise, be honest about it and explain those circumstances in detail.

• Do not automatically dismiss complaints simply because you feel they are unjustified or trivial.

No one thinks their complaint is insignificant regardless of what you may think.   Dismissing out of hand something you feel is trivial can cause even greater problems and cause offense. In fact such offense may grow and fester. An effective leader will address the complaint and not be afraid to explain why they feel the complain is unjustified or trivial. Even though the employee may not hear the answer he is looking for, the leader will not lose respect due to inattention. Of course how he delivers the message is important and should be done without belittling the employee.

• Refusing a request without creating resentment is a vital skill common to effective leaders.

The ability to say no without creating hostility is important. The key is to recognise the validity and sincerity of the request by providing a full explanation as to why it cannot be grated. Being sincere demonstrates concern and makes your personal regret believable.

• Close friendships or relationships with employees are not a good idea.

That does not mean that you should be cold and aloof which can also detract from effective leadership. Leadership is about relationships but you must not develop a personal relationship to the extent that it leads to unwarranted preferential treatment, or compromises your ability to take command when necessary.

You can be friendly without losing authority or compromising your position. Anyone whose job it is to influence people and direct them in their work must maintain friendly contact with the group that is fair and equitable to each individual.  Favouritism can rebound on you and cripple the effectiveness of any team.

Remember, as a leader, others will be depending on your ability to steer the business down the road to success.