Leadership skills that you need to achieve top performance

Strong leadership is the gel that holds organisational aspirations and its stakeholders together. Indeed leadership is what aligns the different competing stakeholder interests to a solitary vision and get all the people moving forward together.

Scholars and practitioners thus define leadership as the ability of an individual or a group of individuals to influence and guide followers or other members of an organisation to achieve desired action.

Whereas leadership qualities just come naturally as a product of who we are, for others these qualities have to be learned.

Granted, you cannot change certain aspects about yourself, but you can control many aspects of your leadership that have a dramatic impact on the people you lead. Interestingly, majority of these shortcomings about you can be overcome easily if you take these ten simple steps.

A leader must learn some psychology. A leaders needs to possess the necessary skills to properly diagnose people problems and render an appropriate solution. Knowledge of psychology is critical for a leader to understand the people he or she is working with in their proper context.

Research has it that 80 percent of a leader’s time is spent dealing with people and resolving their problems. Leaders deal with different employees from diverse backgrounds.

Some of the employees could be undergoing social turmoil; others could be suffering mental issues including adiction and other stressors. As a leader, you need to know how to deal with these people and provide solutions to them so they can remain productive in the workplace.

A leader must learn some persuasion skills. A big part of a leader’s job is to persuade others to do his bidding. Persuasion could take the form of trying to get everyone on board with the leader’s vision. It could also be used when inspiring an individual to strive to reach their fullest potential.

Either way, a leader must sell his vision and thought process to his or her employees and other stakeholders. Regardless of the end goal, when leaders understand how to use persuasion in their organisations, they can be more thoughtful and intentional about their language and, ultimately, be more effective in achieving above average positive results.

Time management. A leader must be able to prioritise his time and only focus on things that matter to the organisation. Therefore, a leader must be able to make tough decisions when it comes to spending and planning their time. When you are wasting time, you are wasting money.

You are not doing the things that move the company goals forward. You could be two to three times more profitable if only you could use time management well.

As a workplace leader, you need to communicate early with your employees so that you do not create confusion. This will achieve freedom from deadline pressures and workplace stress in general for all.

Work with the reality of things. A leader who is thirsty for success seizes the moment. Learn to work with the situation that pertains at that particular moment.

When you violate this rule you will use more resources, time and effort to turn things around and this is very frustrating and most likely you will not succeed. Do not wish an employee did not have an addiction problem, but accept this fact and make all your decisions around this new reality.

Lead by example. The true leader teaches by example. Like a general, they go in first and role-model for their followers. They show followers the work ethics, acceptable behaviour, and appropriate responses. A true leader shows employees the correct way and channels energy to positive impactful activities.

A true leader makes work fun and enjoyable as most employees spend most of their lives at the work place. Who you are speaks volumes about you, not what you have. Always remember that as a leader, the way you are, your followers will most likely copy and become.

Allow people their process. A true leader must understand how his or her staff work and allow them to work that way. People use different systems and ways of doing things, but which surprisingly give same results.

A leader must learn to allow diversity and empower employees to adopt the unique processes that they are most familiar with. This will breed a hybrid staff with varying capabilities, competence and skills that you can use to your advantage.

In a team, you would find some people are very organised, others are team-oriented, while yet some more must think things overnight before taking a decision. If you need more creativity, place the most creative on it. If you want a more organised work, put the most organised team member to lead it.

Maintain smooth workflow. Everything has a workflow. Your job as a leader is to keep things moving smoothly. Try to identify bottlenecks and remove them early.

Check in with your staff and get recommendations on how to keep things moving smoothly. You could have a situation where just one person in the system is slowing things down.

Therefore, as a leader you have to identify him or her and correct the situation before the whole process collapses.

Build relationships. A successful leader works to build strong lasting strategic relationships. Strong relationships give rise to a strong company. Relationship building creates loyalty.

People will do things for you that they cannot do for their ordinary boss. They will feel more connected for their jobs, they will work harder for you and become loyal and when something is going wrong, they will let you know in good time.

Be humble. A leader comes to serve, not to be served and this calls for absolute humility. Serve your staff and they will serve you like you have never seen before. You have to give in order to get.

Protect your staff and they will protect you. Pull them a side when they are doing wrong and warn them privately. Protect them from their boss who also happens to be your boss. Take the hit for them.

What you give to them you get back tenfold.

Be contemplative. A true leader is contemplative and never in a rush. If you have a problem you cannot solve, study it over and over again. Take a walk, talk to your friends, boss, bosses boss and come back to it later.

A true leader is reflective, thinks things out and will rest his or her mind and sleep over complicated issues before taking that major decision.