There are numerous assumptions and myths surrounding leadership, and a few are explained in my previous HRTools.com Insight. In my opinion, the above title question is best answered by a few simple words: A leader is someone who people want to follow.
To develop effective leadership in management, so that people will want to follow your leaders, you will want to consider some important elements. Among them:
Base your decisions on what people think is important. In other words, what do people value? The answers to this question determine how people decide to pursue things, and even how budgets are developed and established. People need to believe that something is worth their making an investment. For instance, in the workplace: If you’re asking people to work on something, whether it’s for a short, intermediate or long-term basis, you’re asking them to invest with their time, skills and/or knowledge. Leaders are in the promotion business, and if they are promoting what people do not value, then it will be difficult to gain their following.
- Know who your players are. Some people just have a knack for providing guidance to and directing others. On the other hand, some people do not have that knack. If you don’t recognize the distinction, you can end up with mismatches, which will cause problems. For example, you might have frustrated employees because they are not in leadership roles, and that’s where they want to be. Conversely, you can have an individual who is very good at what he or she does—perhaps an expert in some technical field—they’re very bright, etc., so you put them in a leadership role. In the latter case, this technical expert may not want to be leading people; and, he or she would rather be a technical expert. So ability is one thing and willingness is another.
- Avoid making assumptions about people. Oftentimes, leaders will assume that everyone wants to be a leader, but that is not the case. Not everyone does want to be a leader, or at least, not in the way that some leaders view it. Someone might be a leader amongst their peers in terms of technical knowledge. But these same people might be ‘behind-the-scenes’ kind of operators. So you need both the ability and the willingness in order to develop an effective leader.
- Recognize the differences between titles and abilities. Let’s face it. Some people are only interested in the pay or the status that a title can offer. Or they want to be seen in a positive light, but their willingness to connect with people isn’t there. If these people are in it only half-heartedly, then their abilities to lead will be impacted. These people will not be effective leaders, and they usually fail.
- Leadership requires experience. You can read about leadership in a book. You can attend leadership classes, and you can participate in simulations and do all these sorts of things. But, ultimately, you have to put yourself in real world work situations. You have to be willing to try and to experiment with behaviors. Leadership is really behavioral, so you have to experiment with behaviors and see what outcomes you get. Then, you keep tweaking those behaviors over a period of time to learn what works and what does not work. So, experience is the most important factor when you want to develop effective leaders.
In my work as a performance specialist, I encourage leadership trainees to practice and experiment. Sure, mistakes can be made and frustrations are felt, but it’s also very rewarding when you see potential leaders experience those ‘Aha!’ moments. Those are the times when they are thrilled, because they have accomplished something they didn’t know they could do.
It all starts to come together for these new leaders. They learn how to effectively lead people through conflict resolution. They learn how to communicate change. And through their skills training, combined with their willingness to experiment, they are building trust and gaining an understanding about the dynamics of those important interpersonal relationships.
And, most importantly, they are realizing that people want to follow effective leaders.
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