6 Steps to Becoming a More Effective Leader

If you want to have a great business, you need great leaders. 

There is a proven link between the effectiveness of leadership and the success of a business. And that’s because great leaders inspire, motivate and challenge their employees to perform at their very best - and bad leaders do the direct opposite. 

Without the right leadership, teams end up unengaged, unmotivated and unhappy which causes all sorts of problems such as employee retention, toxic cultures and poor performance and profitability.

Which is why, if you have problems in your business, the first place you should look is at your leadership team.

However, before you can ensure your leaders are leading your business and people in the way they should be, you need to get clear on what leadership actually means.

Leadership is the process of guiding a team to achieve a common goal by understanding and leveraging individual motivations. While leadership and management are undoubtedly linked, they are not interchangeable.

To put it simply, management typically refers to controlling a group to accomplish a goal. Leadership is the individual’s ability to influence, motivate, and enable people towards success. Leadership is about empowerment and inspiration, while management can be about power and control.

Good managers can also be good leaders, but the skills certainly don’t always go hand in hand.

So, if you want to become a more effective leader, or you’re looking to develop some excellent future leaders in your business, here are 6 steps to help.

1. Remember it’s not all about you

Bad leaders are vain enough to think that the future performance of the business can be driven by them and them alone. In some cases they may accidentally go overboard trying to show authority and lead from the front. However, this can make them appear rude and disrespectful to other employees, it can stop them from recognising the achievements of others on their team, and it can even lead to them taking credit for others’ work or ideas (or worse, blaming others for their failures).

A great leader realises that it takes a whole team to be successful. And a team that works well together, too, because they understand the common goal and what it means to reach it.

A great leader also understands that there is a direct correlation between how engaged and motivated their team is, and how productive and profitable their business can be.

2. Be self aware

A leader should not only be aware of how they work and what makes them tick, but they also need to understand how their actions, words and behaviours can impact other people.

Despite your best intentions,  if you don’t take into account people's different preferences or perspectives, then that can positively or negatively affect motivation, performance, and engagement every single day. Not just for one or two people, but for the entire team.

Picture this: the team hits a target that positions them a great deal closer to their big, shared goal. They’re thrilled. But their leader fails to acknowledge the achievement. What impact is that likely to have on the team and its individuals?

Effective leaders understand that they need to work with their team to keep them happy and engaged. And that employees are not there working for them. They do not dismiss their team’s needs in favour of their own. Leaders have the opportunity to make an impact, make sure it’s a positive one. 

3. Focus on communication

Communication is the key to success in many areas of life - and the workplace isn’t much different! To make sure you’re leading effectively, you need to focus on creating a culture of open and honest communication where everybody feels comfortable sharing their voice; and heard when they do. 

Effective communication can be a tricky thing to get right. Some leaders might not communicate enough and neglect to speak to their teams enough, forget to make sure everyone understands what they’re doing, or ignore training needs. But on the other side of the coin, leaders may bombard their people with too many emails, meetings, or conversations and still fail to effectively communicate their message.

Both can lead to poor morale, disengagement, and a loss of direction. It can leave people feeling confused about what they’re supposed to be doing and what their goals are.

It’s important to understand the communication styles and preferences of the whole team so that you can ensure all communication is crystal clear and people are left in no doubt of what, how and when, they’re supposed to be doing.

4. Be flexible in your approach

In leadership, you need to value the importance of flexibility - especially when it comes to your leadership style!

It isn't always useful to attempt to inspire a whole team with one standard approach. After all, everybody’s different and what’s a motivator for one person isn’t necessarily very helpful for the next.

By being flexible and taking an individual approach, it’s easier to understand what motivates and inspires each and every person within a team. That could mean that one person is driven by public praise whilst that might be another team member's worst nightmare and they would prefer to hit a goal to stay motivated. 

By taking an individual rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, you can gain a better insight into the training needs of each person, rather than simply spotting a skill gap and not knowing where to start fixing it. 

A lot of this boils down to good listening. Take the time to genuinely listen to your team, understand any issues and get a good grasp of what is going well. In turn, this can develop better trust within the business, improved loyalty, and an overall better business culture.

5. Give feedback 

It’s one thing failing to recognise a job well done or celebrate wins, but it’s a lot worse to fail to provide feedback on anything.

Waiting for annual performance reviews to roll round means that any issues and every piece of advice is stored all year long and then unleashed on an employee in one swoop.

Even if they remember whatever it is being talked about from the past 12 months, for the best employees feedback like this can be overwhelming and hold back their professional development. For an employee who needs to make improvements it can leave a lot of time wasted when any issues could have been tackled and overcome a lot more quickly if feedback was given when it was needed.

Instead, leaders should be providing opportunities for regular feedback. Hold more frequent and informal 1:1 meetings with people to check in and offer any guidance at that moment. Not only does this help leaders to keep their finger on the pulse and be more proactive, this all helps to build trust and improves engagement, productivity and collaboration. 

6. DiSC profiling

DiSC profiling is an excellent way of getting further insight into how you can be a more effective leader to your team.

It’s simplistic yet powerful tool to help you understand yourself and your team a little better. It allows you to dig deeper into your culture, how you see it, where you see it, and how you can close the gap between the two with a deeper understanding of yourself and your team. This extra clarity also leads to a range of other benefits including a improved communication and collaboration. If DiSC profiling is something that you are interested in exploring further, get in touch to find out how we can help you.

Final thoughts

Now, I understand there is a lot more when it comes to effective leadership… this could have been a novel. However these are some key places to start to ensure you’re developing as a leader and may even help to identify any areas you may need to improve. 

If you would like some support to become a more effective leader, or you’re looking to develop some excellent future leaders in your business, we would love to help.

Just give us a call or drop us an email to arrange a conversation.

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