A company’s success significantly depends on the leaders. Those in the top positions must definitely need leadership qualities to quickly adapt to whatever situation arises and to coach an employee, lead a team meeting and adopt a strategy. Some of these leadership qualities can be learned, while others are character traits. This article describes the critical roles of a leader to drive success. Let’s look at the top 5 roles of an effective leader.
Top 5 Role of a Leader
The Visionary
A good leader clearly demonstrates the expected behaviour of the team. A leader in this role is someone who is innovative and capable of creating a shared vision, communicating it so powerfully that others join them on the journey, and leveraging ideas and concepts from his or her team and combining them into a concrete plan. All of your employees’ efforts are organised by your vision. You must communicate to your employees your long-term goals, as well as how their daily activities relate to that long-term vision. Leaders must learn to look at their business from a different angle, to be innovative, and, most importantly, to work as a team with their employees.
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Leader Must be a Strategist
Leaders must be strategic thinkers! Strategic leaders achieve consistent results through disciplined planned processes. By focusing on the most important priorities and creating systems that empower people, effective leaders foster an environment in which people can collaborate and translate vision into reality. Be open and ready to transform when necessary, and adapt to technologies and trends that are appropriate for your business.
Establish Communication
Create an organisational structure that includes communication protocols. Employees must understand who they should contact if they have questions or concerns. Face-to-face meetings are required to discuss important issues or convey sensitive information.
Effective Role Model
Demonstrating the behaviour that is expected from the team is necessary. Owners who outburst of anger, demonstrate uncaring attitudes, withhold information from the staff, procrastinate on important decisions, or fail to listen to their employees will not be as respected by the team and likely will not be as successful in achieving their business goals.
Leader must be a Talent Advocator
A leader unleashes the potential of every member of their team to improve performance, solve problems, and advance their careers. Leadership entails viewing others as whole people with a body, mind, heart, and spirit. Leaders in this role shift from telling and fixing to coaching and developing others’ capability and leadership. So, be more of a coach, teach what you’ve learned, listen to their feedback and concerns, address problems quickly, and make yourself available as needed.
Leader must be an Inspiration
A leader is an inspiration! They must inspire others to work and to complete tasks to reach objectives. Your motivation can gain a sense of purpose and you will be able to check off some of the goals and the priorities that you set up for your company.
Setting an Example
Leaders may always not have a podium to speak but sometimes you set an example through your hard work, dedication and optimism. When your subordinates see you meeting with professionals, making certain invoices are paid, they know you are an example to live up to. Your employees watch you constantly, so set a good example.
Some of the other important roles of a leader are:
- Coach. A leader must be a coach who develops others to succeed in their roles and prepare for future roles.
- Facilitator. A leader must be a facilitator who makes things easy for others to boost productivity.
- Change agent. A leader must be an agent himself to guide and champion the changes that you envision and the ones that have been entrusted to you from up the ladder.
- Decision-maker. A leader must be a good decision maker when you are working with less-than-perfect information or you must make one that will be unpopular.
- Influencer. A leader must be an influencer who is constantly influencing others in a positive way.
- Team player. A leader should be a team player.
- Delegator. Leaders can’t do it all. The best leaders delegate strategically to ensure everything is done and to train their employees to take on bigger roles in the organization.
- Listener. Leaders should be a good listener. In fact, the best leaders talk less,and observe more. Make sure you really listen to the people you lead.
Conclusion
Becoming an effective leader can be challenging as one might immediately excel or fail miserably. But don’t fret. Ultimately, leadership is not a position rather a choice to strive for the results.
