An effective leader is essential for business success. Even the strongest companies flounder when CEOs fail to guide employees in executing their mission and upholding their values.
Most people aren’t born ‘good leaders’; leadership skills require ongoing effort and analysis. And many factors influence what effective leadership looks like at different times.
By creating a leadership strategy, you can plan how to achieve your company’s goals and objectives while keeping your team motivated and engaged. It also gives you a clear framework to evaluate and adjust as needed.
A leadership strategy typically includes the following elements:
- Vision and mission: This sets
the direction and purpose for the team. - Goals and objectives: These align with the overall vision and mission.
- Values and culture: To guide the behaviour and decisions of you and the team.
- Leadership style: Describes your preferred leadership style and how you will apply it in different situations.
- Communication plan: How you will communicate with team members, stakeholders, and other leaders.
- Team development: Including hiring, training, and mentoring strategies.
- Decision-making process:
Including who will be involved and the criteria for evaluating options. - Conflict resolution: How you will handle conflicts and disagreements.
- Change management: How you will navigate and lead through periods of change and uncertainty.
- Performance evaluation: The process for evaluating individual and team performance and providing feedback.
- Succession planning: Plans for identifying potential future leaders within the organisation.
The role of personal leadership
Team leadership starts with personal leadership – developing the self-awareness and ability to lead yourself. The more responsibility you have, the more you need to master your mindset, emotional intelligence, and emotional fitness.
Multiple studies show that EQ (emotional quotient) is more important than IQ (intelligence quotient). It doesn’t matter how intelligent you are, if you don’t have emotional fitness, then your habitual responses, reactions, and decisions will be predominantly influenced by ego, fight, flight, or freeze.
To put this in context, an ego-based leader will fail to listen to their team’s expertise and perhaps even feel threatened by it. An insecure leader might struggle to have confronting conversations, and if they are prone to over-analysing, they’ll find it hard to act decisively. A leader who fears uncertainty and change will likely panic, overwork and overwhelm their team with last-minute demands.
Crucially, your state leads their state. If you want somebody to be calm, you need to set an example; however, you can’t do that without emotional fitness.
Be prepared to adapt
No leader is perfect, and mistakes are inevitable. When they happen, you need to take responsibility, determine what went wrong, and then make changes to correct them and prevent problems from re-occurring.
Leadership is also about balancing dichotomies. For instance, if you take too much responsibility for the company’s results, you might end up micromanaging your team, inhibiting their growth, stifling their creativity, and encouraging them to be passive. Alternatively, if you’re too hands-off, they may deviate off course and become chaotic and directionless. Maintaining the right balance requires constant adjustment.
As well as these age-old challenges, there are generational aspects to consider. Gen Z has now surpassed Baby Boomers in the workforce, and the impact is undeniable. Generally, the modern workforce prioritises personal needs and wellbeing much more highly than previous generations.
To effectively engage people rising up through your organisation, focus on the following elements:
Empathy and communication
A modern leader must develop soft skills like communication and empathy to be effective. Empathy does not mean agreeing with everything your team members say, rather understanding their perspective and being able to describe it accurately enough that they feel heard and understood.
Otherwise, you will alienate yourself and create discord. Inevitably, some leaders will intentionally recruit people-pleasers and those willing to sacrifice their welfare to avoid disagreement. But this will soon cause chronic stress and overwhelm. Stressed employees are physiologically unable to perform at their best and you risk creating a situation where people do the bare minimum to avoid getting into trouble.
Flexibility and agency
According to a study by Deloitte, flexibility is the most important factor for Gen Z when choosing a job: 75 percent said they would prioritise it over a higher salary. Of course, you to need create an environment that meets your organisation’s needs.
This links back to balancing dichotomies and caring for team members, but not at the expense of the organisation. Organisations that become too anxious to respond to every request can lose their competitiveness. One solution is to include people in setting their own standards to be held accountable to and having a say in how their performance will be assessed and evaluated.
Look to learning
Career growth is another key area. According to the LinkedIn Employee Well-Being Report, job seekers see opportunities to learn as a key component of company culture, and expect the right support to reach their potential. Make development opportunities clear, identify what individuals need and celebrate their success.
It’s a common concern that upskilling will encourage a person to leave, but that’s short-sighted. If you want employees to grow with you, development is a must for maintaining motivation and productivity.