A Fantastic Award For Good Leadership Programs

If you're an influencer in your office, ask yourself: Who's really effective at leading others in your team? When you need a project done, who would you naturally assign it to?

Those people are fantastic leaders and deserve recognition. And if they don't know it yet, they need to read this article! If they've never attended one of our Good Leadership Programs, now is their chance to find out what the fuss is all about.

What Is This Blog About? 

This blog is focused on sharing information about how to establish good leadership skills for personal or professional development. It includes tips on how to become a good leader and provide valuable feedback for others. It also covers how to become a better leader.

The focus of this blog is on the leadership skills needed to establish a successful business. These include being able to manage your team in different situations, setting goals and objectives, motivating your people, and encouraging self-improvement.

Why This Blog Was Started 

It's been my privilege over the last 15 years of working with managers and leaders in Singapore to observe their ability to lead well. Over time, I have observed some common mistakes made by these leaders regarding their leadership skills. I've also observed that some of these leaders are very talented in other areas and so they continue to make these common mistakes despite knowing what they should do instead.

My intention with this blog is to help leaders identify and correct these mistakes in themselves so they can achieve greater success at work and be a leader in their field. I also hope that it will inspire other successful people to learn to lead others as well.

What This Blog Offers 

The blog explains what good leadership skills are, why they are important, how to develop them, and how you can use them in your personal life.

In addition, the blog outlines specific leadership skills which I have developed over the years that you should focus on developing. Here are seven core leadership skills that you need to develop if you want to be an effective leader:

1. Developing Others 

2. Motivating Others 

3. Giving Praise  4. Providing Feedback  5. Dealing with Conflict  6. Handling Pressure and Challenges  7. Creating a Vision

Also, the blog outlines five key areas of leadership where I've found leaders often fail to change their behavior despite acknowledging the need to do so. Let's look at those briefly:

1. Change Your Perception 

Although some people are naturally good at leading others, most leaders need to develop these skills. Here are some common traits that you may have which prevent you from being a better leader:

·          Lack of Self-Awareness – Understanding your strengths and weaknesses. Looking at yourself as if you were an outside observer. This is crucial for developing any ability in life.  Or, as Jim Rohn used to say, "Don't work on what you can't see. Instead, work on what you can see."

·          Lack of Leadership Experience – Leaders too often believe they don't need leadership experience because they have good leadership skills. However, leaders have good skills but only develop them if they use them.

·          Lack of Confidence in One's Abilities – This is a trait that many leaders share.  When you lack confidence in your ability to lead others, you are very unlikely to do so well!  The result is that you fail to develop the necessary skills to be a good leader.

2. Dealing with Conflict 

Conflict can be a two-edged sword. Sometimes it's very useful because it forces your team to improve, adapt, and grow. Sometimes you need to go beyond conflict to address a problem and achieve a successful win-win outcome.

I've found that if a leader does not understand the difference between conflict and chaos, they will find themselves unprepared for the various conflicts in their teams. When they are caught by surprise by conflict, they let all the emotions out at once without analysing what caused the conflict in the first place. This might make them look like they have failed to lead but actually they have not failed at leading others but at communicating with them clearly or resolving the conflict effectively.

3. Giving Praise  

People are more likely to do their best work if they're praised and recognized for it. At times, this may also help to motivate them. However, you should praise and recognize people only after they have done something well which encourages others to do well as well.  And praise them in a way that shows genuine admiration for their performance as opposed to flattery which can feel insincere.  If you provide this type of praise, people will be confident that what they've done is valued by the organization or project manager (their manager) and will want to continue excelling so that you continue giving them credit!

4. Providing Feedback 

I've found that many leaders fail to provide the right amount and type of feedback. The most common problem I find is that leaders are too hesitant to give feedback to their team members. They may be afraid of hurting people's feelings, but lack of feedback often hurts people more than the negative feedback itself.  In addition, employees may only receive negative feedback from their supervisors which is not always accurate because employees who know they're doing well will simply stop trying to improve in areas where they're weak; this can lead to stagnation and falling behind in a competitive market.

4. Dealing with Conflict 

Conflict can be a two-edged sword. Sometimes it's very useful because it forces your team to improve, adapt, and grow. Sometimes you need to go beyond conflict to address a problem and achieve a successful win-win outcome.

I've found that if a leader does not understand the difference between conflict and chaos, they will find themselves unprepared for the various conflicts in their teams. When they are caught by surprise by conflict, they let all the emotions out at once without analysing what caused the conflict in the first place. This might make them look like they have failed to lead but actually they have not failed at leading others but at communicating with them clearly or resolving the conflict effectively.

5. Dealing with Pressure and Challenges 

People sometimes turn to leaders because they want to solve problems, get it done, or handle the various challenges. However, if you don't do a good job handling these situations, your people will look around for other leaders they can follow. In order to maintain their loyalty, you must make sure that you're ready and able to handle the pressure and challenges that come at you.

6. Creating a Vision 

To be an effective leader you must constantly create a vision for your team members so they can grow and develop over time.

Conclusion

Leadership is not easy and it takes time to develop the skills necessary to become a good leader. However, if you want to be a good leader, you need to develop these abilities:

·          Self-Awareness – Understanding your strengths and weaknesses. Looking at yourself as if you were an outside observer. This is crucial for developing any ability in life.  Or, as Jim Rohn used to say, "Don't work on what you can't see. Instead, work on what you can see."

·          Leadership Experience – Leaders too often believe they don't need leadership experience because they have good leadership skills.