Develop leadership skills
Leadership skills are essential for team success.
What’s the most important to develop depends on team structure, your role, and your experience:
The leadership of leaders above me
My own leadership
The leadership of leaders that report to me
Discover your own leadership style
It’s easy to meet very opinionated leaders that claim that their leadership style is the best if only all others would lead like them. While it might be inspirational, imitation rarely works. We all have different strengths and values, and our leadership styles vary as well.
In literature you could find leadership archetypes:
Coercive | The boss: “Do as I say”
Authoritative | Visionary: “Come with me“
Affiliative | Carer: “My people first“
Democratic | Listener: “What do you think?“
Pacesetting | The hustler: “Do as I do and do it now"
Coaching | Coach: “What would help?“
If you read even more they say that it’s good to know more leadership styles and always use the right for the current situation.
You might get the best results when you develop your unique leadership style. Take advantage of your unique strengths and build on top of what you already know.
Make reflections and ask for feedback to improve at accelerated space.
Discover your strengths and preferences
Try to write down:
What are you naturally good at (personal strengths)?
Think of a situation where you demonstrated strong leadership - might at work, at school, at home, at sports, anything - How did you do it? What of your unique characteristics helped you?
Imagine yourself two years - you have become the leader you always wanted to be - Describe very specifically: How do you lead?
Communication proceeds the success
Leadership is a team sport and communication is the key here. Before approaching others let’s make it clear to ourselves. Our communication is much better when there is solid internal understanding.
Try to write down answers to the following questions:
What is it you would like to achieve? (Objective)
What will be better when the objective is achieved? (Importance)
What is already achieved and how did you get so far? (Resources)
What steps would take us to the desired outcome? (Plan)
Who can help you achieve your objective and how? (Team & roles)
Useful tools
These tools can help to become a better leader. It’s rarely seen that leaders have all of these in writing. Yet when you write you think and make your ideas clearer. If you also share your notes, others can better understand and get curious. Try to combine your leadership with written notes in Ayanza and see the difference. In addition, check the following tools and templates:
Vision and goals
Core values
One-on-one meetings
Team meetings
Personal reflection & retrospective
Feedback and feedforward