3 Essential Tips for being a Good 'Leader'!!!

3 Essential Tips for being a Good 'Leader': All of us aim to be good Leaders (except the ones who are already one). However, knowingly or unknowingly we ignore the aspects to be developed for being the one. In this article I will try to take you through some of the important tips to consider. 

3 Essential Tips for being a Good 'Leader'

It is said that 'Make a Dog leader of group of Lions and they will act like a Dog. Make a Lion leader of group of Dogs and they will fight like the Lions.' This statement itself is sufficient to understand the importance of a Good leader for success in any aspect.

We come across many posts and articles on the internet regarding the qualities, does & don'ts, attributes of a good 'Leader'. Many of these things are practical while are others are good to read. It is totally dependent on each one's personality for which trait to adopt. However one thing is for sure that we have to develop some traits for being effective 'Leaders'. Now, I believe that we are surely aware of the difference between a 'Boss' and a 'Leader' and all the professionally growing people definitely aim at becoming a good 'Leader' rather than a 'Boss'. 

In my career, I was able to work with some excellent leaders (not directly linked to my profile but I couldn't resist noticing them). Few of them good at technical aspects, some at administrative while some in both. I am trying to pen down a few things that they followed for being so good and effective at their work. Surely and definitely, these aspects will help the growing professionals to be good 'Leaders'.   

Briefly, the aspects for leadership essentials can be considered under the 3 categories as below with their percentage importance (you can vary the % according to you):

1. Personality Aspects (20%)
2. Public Relation Aspects (35%)
3. Work/ Goal Related Aspects (45%)

1. Personality Aspects:
It is said that personality is an inbuilt characteristic of an individual. However, none can deny that by working on the negatives, anyone can enhance the personality as per the requirements. 
For being a good leader to others, you must first of all be able to take care of yourself including the topics below:

a. Looks, Attire & Belongings:
Believe it or not, your impact on a population, preliminary is dependent upon the way you look and carry yourself. Give utmost care for: 

Groom Yourself & Dress up Right

• Personal grooming: Give utmost care for the way you cut your hair (should be professional), beards (if available) should be trimmed appropriately, use of a good fragrance etc. 
• Dressing Up: Dress up in a professional manner and be sure to have good quality clothes. I have and even you might have seen people talk about bad dressing sense and quality of clothes of a particular leader.
• Accessories: In today's tech savvy world, you need to be aware of the new gadgets and surely own the important (professionally) ones. At the same time never ever do a show off of your accessories, else you will be a topic of fun. These can include the laptops, notepads, mobiles, bags, watches etc. Choose these very carefully. They depict your personality.
• Being Happy: Please refer my article about '5 Tips for Investments to Happiness' wherein I have discussed in detail about how happiness is a prerequisite for being successful.  

b. Being Disciplined:
One of the most important quality of a good 'Leader' is being disciplined and remember for you to be able to preach your team for demonstrating discipline, you should first strictly follow it. The discipline qualities includes:

• Being on Time: Being on time is the most impacting quality aspect of a good Leader. No matter how busy you are, be on time to any event maybe meetings, gatherings, discussions etc. This gives the most positive impact about your personality, never underestimate the importance of being on time. If there is a delay due to some unavoidable emergencies, please inform the team upfront before time. Respect time and people will respect you. 
• Use of Professional Language: In any circumstances, never use unprofessional language in a meeting or even in one to one discussions. The use of such language depicts the culture you are brought up with. Please understand that people will respect you if you respect them. If you are angry, express it, but in a professional manner. Never loose talk about any person.
• Cross Gender Behavior: One of the most important aspect in professional environment is the cross gender behavior. It should be understood that your behavior should be good with everyone, however, you should take utmost care while having so with a person from the other gender. It is a human nature many a times to develop a soft corner for a person from the other gender (though not involved emotionally), but believe me this will ruin your professional growth. Also, do not mistreat anyone (especially from cross gender).This might not impact your professional performance but surely will give people a hot topic of discussion (even when they are not concerned). So be sure to avoid any such behavior in the professional arena.
• Attitude: Remember, for being an effective Leader, you must have an attitude. When I say this, it means that you have a balanced attitude i.e. showing of anger when required, staying balanced, having dignity, behaving with maturity etc. You will need to develop an attitude that people can give example of.
• Ego: It should be understood that there is a lot of difference between having an attitude and having Ego. Ego will ruin you. If any thing is said about you (by subordinates or higher ups) and you take it on your ego which keeps on disturbing you, then you are not in control of yourself and anybody can manipulate you. This is not a good sign. Let the things go off. Handle these aspects with attitude and not ego. You can also refer the article 'Ego is the enemy of Good Leadership' by the Harvard Business School.

2. Public Relation Aspects:
It should be understood that being a good leader, you need to be effective with a group of population that you deal with. That is where your relation with these people is important. When we are talking about professional leadership, the people you deal with includes:

a. Your Team
b. Your Higher Ups (your Leaders)
c. Subordinates & Cross Functional Team   

Let us see the aspects for consider for each one of them.

a. Your Team:

Basic Success Factor for Good Leader- Having A Good Team

The base of you being a good leader starts with you own team. This is the aspect where you should focus mostly because this is your work force. This is the team which will be determine your success. Below aspects should be used for strengthening the team:

• Evaluating the team: When you say a team i.e. group of people, you are bound to have a variety (not necessarily all your type). Firstly evaluate the team appropriately i.e. which member is good at which work, which is the highest potential member and vice versa. It does not mean that you will differentiate between the members based on their ability, but this is needed for work allocation and also for upliftment of weaker members. By this evaluation, you will know which area you should focus personally more (definitely, the weaker members). 
• Discipline: As already discussed in the section above for 'Personality' of a Leader, you should first follow and then preach discipline. Never entertain any unprofessional aspects from any team member. They should know that you are too 'Good' till they are ethical and professional. There should always be a silent element of alarm about breaking the discipline. It is said that 'Praise your team member in public and scold them in solo', this is very essential for their growth and improvement.
• Being Fair & Clear: Being Fair means that evaluating the team in an appropriate manner based on their work and behavior. Have routine discussions with the team about their work, areas of improvement etc. Never demoralize any member in your team. Never ever threat any member with the annual financial assessment, this will create hatred for you in their mind. Never favor any specific member in the team, praise your team members for their work and not for any other reasons.
• Be Protective: Never ever let any one (except your boss) scold/ mistreat your team. Be protective to your team even if they have done a mistake, it is only your (and your Boss's) right to discipline them.  
• Having a Personal Touch: One essential aspect of having a good team with good members it to have a personal touch with them. Know about their families, their likes, dislikes, encourage them with their hobbies, guide them, have family gatherings/ picnics etc. This will develop a bond between the members and you.  
• Dealing with the 'Not-willing' members: In some situations, you will have to deal with the members who are not willing to do the assigned work. This can be due to the fact that either they don't have the ability to do it, or they are in habit of doing nothing or they are not accepting your leadership. Primarily, evaluate the reason (from the above). It is easy to deal with the non-ability ones as you can help them built the ability. But in the other two cases, you will have to give time and full efforts i.e. giving them time bound assignments, tracking their work closely etc. Still if you believe that they are stubborn enough, it is really a time to take hard decision.        

b. Higher Ups (Your Leaders):
For you to achieve professional success and success as a leader, you should be able to fulfill the requirements of your Leaders. 
This can be done by knowing the basic requirements of your boss, prioritizing the work, updating the boss on events etc. 

Please follow the link on '10 Tips to Make Your Boss Happy' of my blog for knowing the details of having confidence of your boss. 

c. Subordinates & Cross Functional Team: 
Your success as a Leader is not only dependent on your team and your leaders but also equally on your acceptance to your subordinates (parallel Leaders) and Cross functional teams. Things to consider are:

• Be a problem solver: Whenever there is work related problem, ensure that you and your team work to solve the same. Never complicate the problem and always search ways to solve it easily. Problems solvers are always loved and more successful than the ones who complicates them.
• Ready to Help: When in your area of expertise, always be ready to help the subordinates and cross functional team. 
• Arguments: When you work with a cross functional team, you are bound to have work related arguments, important thing is to keep it work related and non-impacting to your personal relations. When arguing, use professional language (refer section above on 'Personality Aspects') and be strong technically. Also, if the opposite side has a strong technical and logical point, be ready to accept and conclude.    

Considering the bigger picture, we can say that the Team comprise not only your reporting team but all the above defined people i.e. team, boss, subordinates and cross functional team. Thus, for you to succeed, success of complete team is essential.

This aspect usually can be dealt with 'Soft Skills'. Please refer my article on 'Top 7 Soft Skills to know and develop' for having know how about the same. 

3. Work/ Goal Related Aspects: 
As per the above stated details, I have given the maximum importance (45%) to the work/ goal related aspects from the above three. The fact is that even though if you follow the above aspects i.e. personality & public relations appropriately and you are unable to deliver the work/ goal on time or as per requirements, then your credibility as a Leader is going to be questioned. 
The above two aspects are supporting to the main aspect of 'Work'. Let us now look into few work related aspects:  

• Work allocation: Based on the evaluation of your team (as discussed in the above section), allocate the work appropriately. Never be reserved to shuffle the responsibilities based on the work performed. 
• Importance of Time: Sensitize the team about importance of time bound activities. If you get a time of 100% from the higher ups, assign a 75% timeline to the team for timely work completion.
• Be part of performing team: For all the tasks, be the part of team to perform the activities and lead from the front. At the same time, it should be remembered that you alone can never perform all the work and that the reason why a team is allocated. You should identify the work that can be fully allocated, that can be allocated with surveillance and that you should be personally part of.  
• Tracking of Assigned Work: Track daily all the activities that the team is performing. Have a morning discussion with the team about the development of activities and their plans for the day. Guide/ Correct their plans as per the priority of work. Remember the motive of tracking is not to pin point the team about their pending work, but to find out ways to complete the work effectively within timelines. Ask the team to update you on all the aspects and in turn update your boss on the important ones.
• Decision Making: One of the most important aspect of any activity is the decision making. One should always remember that any decision making should be notified (to subordinates & team members) and approved (from higher ups). You should again have a predefined criteria (risk based) on the person responsible for decision making i.e. team member, you or your boss. If you are responsible for taking decision, then you should notify it to your team members and subordinates and at the same time get it approved from your boss. Once a decision is taken, the complete line (team, you and your boss) should be firm with it.
• Having a second Line: One of the ignored point for being effective leader is to develop a one. Having a second line leader is very essential to handle the work as effectively as you do in case of your absence or emergency work allocation. This person should be fully aware of all the aspects of your work and should be in complete sync with you.  
• Technically Updated: Be technically updated on all the work related aspects. This can be done by technical reading, attending seminars, training etc.   

It should always be remembered that leaders are not born, they are developed by hard work, perseverance, dedication, discipline, right attitude, appropriate decision making and most importantly by having a team that works together to achieve a common goal i.e. 'Success'.   

Hope you like the above compilation of my thoughts on '3 Essential Tips for being a Good 'Leader'!!!'. Kindly encourage/ criticize me by your valuable comments on my blog. Also, suggest topics which I can consider to continue my writings.

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