With the ever-increasing number of tests, surveys, self-help books, articles and motivational speeches on leadership, it can be difficult to ascertain what qualities make a great leader. Firstly, it is important to determine why effective leadership is important and what are its benefits. Leadership is an essential function of management which helps maximise efficiency and achieve goals with impact. These benefits include; retaining top talent, nurturing future leaders, a positive workplace culture, increased employee engagement and improved creativity and innovation. However, the traditional “command and control” management tactic is no longer having its desired effect, and those failing to adapt are being left behind. To future-proof your leadership and business, try incorporating the below suggestions.
Creating, believing & living the “why”
The mission for your company’s existence or the “why” provides structure, meaning and an ethical code for your employees and executives. Authenticity, enthusiasm and strong sense of purpose, has a flow on effect, in breaking down the “just a job” mentality, fostering pride and creating a vibrant workplace culture. Authentic leaders take time to get to know themselves and their core values. This kind of leader has meaningful relationships with their team, which equates to better alignment and performance outcomes, as well as, maintaining trust and cohesion with stakeholders and the staff they lead. To implement this into your leadership, you will need to assess what it is about your company/job that you truly connect with.
Emotional Intelligence
As previously discussed in last month’s newsletter, emotional intelligence is often an indicator of a strong leader, as they are skilled at understanding and managing emotions and open and honest communication. The results of a leader with emotional intelligence is a dynamic workforce, that feels valued by their leaders, better team work, improved communication and enhanced empathy. In order to cultivate your EQ try these suggestions: manage your negative emotions, be mindful of your vocabulary, practice empathy, know your stress triggers and, practice resilience.
Open yourself to new ideas and foster organisational learning
When a leader is open to new ideas and actively fosters organisational learning, they can often experience the benefits of; “out of the box ideas”, teams working creatively and, building a team’s collective intelligence. To encourage learning amongst your employees, a true leader must first ensure that they are open to learning and are willing to adjust when they are incorrect or are shown a more effective method. Try to approach problem-solving discussions with an open mind and withhold judgement until everyone has given their ideas and reassure your employees that all ideas will be considered and are equally valid. Failure often is the precursor to success and is required to foster learning. However, with our relentless pursuit for positive results often leads to discouraging employees with challenging the status-quo.
How leadership is fostered at ESV
Our partners at ESV are dedicated to the pursuit of improving and challenging our staff through providing inspiring and informative training to equip staff with the skills for the next step in their career journey. At ESV we currently have two different leadership programs, aimed at staff at different levels in their careers, to grow their leadership skills.
The Emerging Leaders Program is run yearly by external consultants providing professional development to key people looking to step up into a leadership role. In this program, staff are trained about; self-awareness, self-management, people management client management, presentation and communication skills. This program is assisting emerging leaders gain the required leadership skills to achieve their next step in their career.
The Managers Development and Coaching Program is another yearly run program for supervisors and managers to develop their skills in; key business management, leaderships and networking skills, business acumen, personal & team effectiveness, effective communication, building your personal brand profile, building meaningful client relationships, coaching, managing difficult situations. This program continues to build upon the foundational leadership skills, in order for our manager level staff to continue to grow their professional profile.
Should you like to read more about leadership and its role in business, please see our article on Leadership and Innovation with Naomi Simpson. For further questions or would like more information around integrating HR best practice with your organisation’s strategic objectives, please contact your ESV Partner on 9283 1666.
