8 Ways to become a better leader

Highly successful teams are usually headed by an effective leader. To be a good leader, one must connect with their team, have open conversations and encourage the growth and development of their team members. In order to be a highly effective leader you must be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses, as well as understand your motivations. Here are 8 ways you can become a more effective leader.

1: Engage in honest, open communication

This is one of the most important elements when encouraging trust and open communication among your team. For this to be effective you must demonstrate this to your team by being more open and honest in your own communication style, before expecting them to do the same. As a leader, it’s important to be straightforward and transparent. By showing integrity in the way you communicate, you will encourage respect and loyalty in your team. In essence, be genuine, your team can tell a fake from a mile away and will not be impressed.

2: Connect with your team members

Mutual trust and understanding is essential to team work. To achieve this, you must be more human. Be more positive in your outlook, be more purposeful, show empathy and compassion for your staff and build a real personal connection with them. Get to really know who they are, what motivates them and their strengths and weaknesses. Encourage them to grow and develop a sense of autonomy and accountability. This will increase self-confidence and increase their performance.

3: Teach your employees instead of giving orders

A good leader demonstrates what they want instead of simply giving orders. Coach your staff and encourage their personal and professional growth. Motivate and inspire them through empowerment of their strengths. Invest emotionally in their growth and provide challenges that will give them personal satisfaction. So, delegate more and encourage them to tackle tasks with freedom and creativity.

4: Keep a positive attitude

Speed bumps and road blocks happen more often than not in any professional setting, but your ability to stay positive will not only help you to stay focused and effective, your staff will also benefit from witnessing you handling these negative situations. Become more solution oriented and tackle problems quickly. Engage your staff in finding the solution to the problem.

5: Set clear goals and expectations

This is important in ensuring your team has the right expectations. When setting goals, encourage questioning and feedback and be open to other perspectives. Set objectives in a way where it is trackable and where employees can get regular feedback about their performance. Revisit these objectives and revise them if necessary. Most importantly, ensure that your team knows that you are present with them and that you know that they are working on it. When giving your feedback be direct and honest. Nothing can change, unless people know specifically what they are changing. Be sure to also give positive recognition by acknowledging your staff’s successes by outlining specific impacts on the business and not with vague congratulations for doing a good job.

6: Ask for feedback about your leadership

It can be challenging to get a true assessment of how effective your leadership style is, for this reason your staff, mentors and colleagues can give you invaluable feedback on how effective you actually are. Coaching can also be effective in assessing areas where you may need some improvement and allows you to make the connection and changes you can immediately implement. Feedback from your team members will definitely complement and guide you as you are making these changes.

7: Be open to new ideas

Good leaders understand that change is inevitable. They embrace change and innovation instead of sticking to the status quo for the sake of consistency. Be receptive to another’s suggestion or take on something. Everyone’s perspective is unique, so don’t discourage this. Ensure that your team is comfortable sharing their insights and ideas openly. This will ultimately lead to innovation, more engagement and success.

8: Understand your motivation

Don’t do anything half-baked and without conviction. Understand what you want and don’t waste time on things that don’t motivate you. Your team will see this in you and know that you put them first and truly care about their growth and success. Know your strengths and weaknesses and hire a team that will complement you and make you more rounded. Resist the temptation of hiring carbon copies of yourself. Your team should be more like a melting pot of different people with different strengths and weakness and talents, rather than a set of homogenous robots.

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About the Author

Taneallea Feddis,

Founder/Managing Director, BlackWall Consultants

She is an educator, website designer and content marketer.​ She helps entrepreneurs develop their business through coaching and developing their digital strategy. She is passionate about teaching new skills to others, and her goal is to encourage and assist Caribbean businesses with their digital transformation and sharing in their success stories. Click here to learn more about Taneallea Feddis.