Month: July 2021

By: David Novak Leadership

Leadership in the workplace refers to the ability of an individual to manage and supervise a company and its fellow employees. It also refers to the ability to positively influence others to perform their jobs to the best of their ability. This will result in success for the company as a whole.

Displaying leadership involves having a variety of skills and qualities that help you perform your job with ease. The various skills a leader should possess include both hard and soft skills. Here are some important qualities all leaders should possess in the workplace:

1. Good communication: As with most roles, it’s important that leaders are good communicators. In many ways, they are the voice of the company, so being able to effectively communicate with their team and employees is vital in their position.
2. Empathy: Leaders need to display a great deal of empathy. This involves understanding others’ wants, needs and concerns. Not only will this create a harmonious working relationship, but displaying empathy will earn trust and respect from your colleagues and employees.
3. Positivity: Positivity can go a long way in boosting morale and promoting a healthy work environment in general. Leaders should have a good attitude and stay positive throughout their everyday tasks. When employees see them being positive, they’re more likely to be positive themselves. Leaders should aim to inspire others through their positive outlook.
4. Confidence: As a leader, it’s important to have belief in your abilities. When you display a reasonable amount of confidence, you can help motivate others as well as give them hope for the company’s future.
5. Vision: In order to make a company profitable, it’s important for leaders to have a good vision. This means they have the motivation and ability to think beyond the present and plan for the future strategically.
6. Responsibility: Since leaders have a variety of tasks they’ll need to complete, it’s important that they’re responsible in the workplace. This means prioritizing their duties and staying focused on what needs to get done for the company.
7. Transparency: Leaders should also be transparent about the company’s state, its goals and more. This means being open, honest and effectively communicating with others in the organization. The more transparent you are as a leader, the more your employees will trust you going forward.
8. Motivating: As a leader, you’ll be responsible for not only leading your team but empowering them to perform to the best of their ability.
9. Delegation: It’s important that you’re able to effectively delegate and manage your team of employees.
10. Humility: Leaders should be modest about their motivations and actions. It’s important for employees to see that their superiors can make mistakes, too.

To understand even more on leadership and what makes a great leader listen to our podcast How Leaders Lead.

By: David Novak Leadership

Leadership is the ability of an individual or a group of individuals to influence and guide followers or other members of an organization.

Leadership involves making sound — and sometimes difficult — decisions, creating and articulating a clear vision, establishing achievable goals and providing followers with the knowledge and tools necessary to achieve those goals.

Leaders are found and required in most aspects of society, from business to politics to region to community-based organizations.

An effective leader possesses the following characteristics: self-confidence, strong communication and management skills, creative and innovative thinking, perseverance in the face of failure, willingness to take risks, openness to change, and level headedness and reactiveness in times of crisis.

In business, individuals who exhibit these leadership qualities can ascend to executive management or C-level positions. Noteworthy individuals who have exhibited strong leadership in the technology industry include Apple founder Steve Jobs, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Multiple definitions of leadership exist, although the different definitions generally converge in the theory that great leaders have the ability to make strategic and visionary decisions and convince others to follow those decisions. The consensus is that leaders create a vision and can successfully get others to work toward achieving that goal. They do this by setting direction and inspiring others to want to succeed in achieving the end result. Moreover, they are capable of getting people excited and motivated to work toward the vision.

In other words, great leaders know how to both inspire people and get followers to complete the tasks that achieve the leader’s goal.

Leadership involves creating and articulating a vision and inspiring others to want to work toward that vision. But leaders may not be skilled at or involved with the day-to-day management of the work needed to turn that vision into a reality.

Management, on the other hand, is the oversight of the tactical steps required to complete the work needed to actually achieve the objective.

Leadership often requires leaders to take on some management tasks, but good leaders understand that their strengths are different than those exhibited by good managers who excel in articulating the steps required to complete tasks and holding people accountable for achieving their share of assigned work.

Leadership requires individuals to possess certain key traits, such as strong communication skills, charisma, assertiveness and empathy.

Many individuals inherently possess some leadership traits, but most individuals have to develop many, if not all, of the characteristics associated with leadership.

Some people can develop leadership skills through their everyday experiences. Moreover, some people do not hold any positions of authority or business titles, yet still demonstrate leadership through their actions and abilities to rally people to act on their visions for something better than the status quo.

By: David Novak Leadership

The question of how to be a leader is an endlessly fascinating topic.

But before we go playing around with nitpicky details, make sure you understand the basics of how to be a leader.

Let’s start with the most basic level: How do you define leadership?

When you think about it, leadership is more complex than we often realize. It’s not just being a person who is admired, though that may be part of it. It’s also being the person who can drive a team to achieve results. It’s inspiring people to achieve more, to work to their potential.

But that’s not all leadership is. Leadership is also teaching, coaching and passing along knowledge. Leadership is ensuring that problems are solved. Leadership is steering the ship, setting the goals and making sure they’re achieved. When you think about how to be a leader, you’re pulling together many different components and aspects of being an entrepreneur.

The following leadership basics can all be part of discovering what being a leader means for you.

1. Look at the big picture.

   Whether you employ one person or one thousand, as the leader of your company, you’re responsible for steering the ship.

   You choose the destination.

   You keep an eye out for obstacles.

   You assemble the crew that can get you there.

   When you think about how to be a leader, try to keep the big picture in mind.

2. Know when to let go and delegate.
   Yes, you’re in charge. Yes, the buck stops with you, and you’re the captain of the ship. But you can’t personally control everything. In fact, part of seeing the big picture is zooming out from all the details. (An aside: This is true for life, as well as business.)

   You don’t have to be everything to everyone. You’ve hired great staff, and part of leadership is delegating. If you’re overwhelmed by details, you’re doing instead of leading.

3. Empower your staff by teaching them, instead of taking over.

   For me, a big part of leadership is being a coach or a teacher—I want to help my staff achieve their potential and grow, developing new skills along the way.

   When I started my first company, I thought rolling up my sleeves was how to be a leader. I’d get in the trenches and work right alongside my employees.

   The problem was that I wasn’t really leading. I was doing. My staff wasn’t learning as much as they could have if I’d stepped back and let them get their hands dirty. Empowering your staff is a critical part of leadership.

   If you’re doing the work, you’re not teaching your staff, and if you’re not teaching your staff, you’re not going to have time to accomplish real leadership tasks like figuring out systems that make your company run more efficiently.
   Train, teach, guide, coach, encourage…that’s how to be a leader.

4. Reward your employees’ success.

   A big part of leadership is finding ways to motivate your staff, and that can be a challenging task since people are motivated by different factors. But the best leaders I’ve ever known take the time to figure out what each employee needs.

   Some employees want praise. Some want money. Some want to be challenged. Some want to be nurtured. If you observe your staff and implement reward or incentive structures that hit a variety of motivating factors, you may find greater success in moving your team toward the goal.

   You do what you do because it’s your company. Your staff isn’t in the same position. Learning how to be a leader means finding meaningful ways to reward success and motivate self.

5. Connect company goals with personal goals.

   One of my favorite aspects of leadership is the opportunity to mentor my staff. I love the challenge of helping them determine what matters to them and make plans for their futures.

   Connecting company goals with my employees’ personal goals is one way I’ve found to motivate my staff. The bonus is it moves the company toward my desired outcomes, and it helps my staff grow as well.

   Learning how to be a leader is a process, but it begins with fundamentals. Knowing what leadership means to you is the first step—understanding the basics can help you refine your leadership skills over the course of your career.

   For homework, come up with your own definition of leadership. Jot down all the things that matter to you and write a couple of sentences that get at the heart of what you want to achieve as a leader.

   For more on this check out our podcast How Leaders Lead to hear more on how the top leaders are making a difference by the way they lead, and getting great things done.

 
By: David Novak Leadership

Such a simple question, but let’s start with what leadership is not…

Leadership has nothing to do with seniority or one’s position in the hierarchy of a company. Too many talks about a company’s leadership referring to the senior-most executives in the organization. They are just that, senior executives. Leadership doesn’t automatically happen when you reach a certain pay grade.

Leadership has nothing to do with titles. Similar to the point above, just because you have a C-level title, doesn’t automatically make you a “leader.” Say the word “leader” and most people think of a domineering, take-charge charismatic individual. We often think of icons from history like General Patton or President Lincoln. But leadership isn’t an adjective. We don’t need extroverted charismatic traits to practice leadership. And those with charisma don’t automatically lead.

I guess technically a leader could use social influence to just organize the efforts of others, but leadership is about maximizing the effort. It’s not, “Hey everyone, let’s line up and get to the top of that hill someday.” But rather, “Hey, see that hill? Let’s see how fast we can get to the top…and I’ll buy the first round for anyone who can beat me up there.”

So what do you think? Is this how you would define leadership?