Strong leadership is the foundation of a strong organisation. In times of crisis, and times of plenty, strong leadership is the key to the sustained success and growth of your organisation. Follow these 5 simple principles to strengthen your leadership effectiveness.
As a leader, your role is to steer your organisation through rough seas and calm.
1. Hold yourself and others accountable
Being accountable means delivering on your commitments, to your people and your customers. Hold yourself to the same or higher standards than others and be consistent in pursuing and meeting them.
When you make a mistake, admit to it and communicate what will be done to fix it. If you do this, others will follow your example, and problems that might have been hidden in the past can be fixed quickly before they escalate.
Set clear and realistic expectations for others, and make sure they have the tools, support and capabilities to meet them.
The Centre for Creative Leadership, founded in 1970, list some of how you can create a culture of accountable leadership n your organisation
Support–people at all levels of your organisation
Provide Freedom–Give your team the freedom to implement to achieve an agreed outcome
Share Information–Give your people the information they need to make informed decisions and meet their deliveries
Provide resources - tight control and limited resources, be they people, tools or technology make it difficult to achieve goals.
Be clear–in your communication of expectations and consequences.
2. Be Empathic
The last 2 years have been trying on a personal level for many, and they have affected the people in your organisation on some level.
Empathetic Leadership is all about being able to provide constructive feedback and direction, and taking action to help people grow and thrive in their careers
According to Tony Robbins, empathetic leadership means having a desire to understand why people are the way they are, creating the ability to connect with different people and adapt their styles accordingly.
Empathetic Leadership is all about being able to provide constructive feedback and direction, and taking action to help people grow and thrive in their careers. It's about connecting on a human level with your team and your clients to create a mutually beneficial relationship.
Start by asking people how they are doing and be attentive to their responses and sincere in yours. Make sure people know how what they do impacts the company, and where they fit into the greater scheme of things. People are more likely to go the extra mile when they feel seen and appreciated.
3. Be realistically positive
In times of crisis, the best way to keep your team positive is to be open and honest about the issues confronting your organisation. Communicating the issues will minimise background noise and “passage talk” and open the floor to solution-focused conversations.
In their Harvard Business Review article, “4 Behaviours that help leaders manage a crisis”, Chris Nichols, Shoma Chatterjee Hayden, and Chris Trendler advocate for impactful engagement with your people and customers. Ask for help where you need it, celebrate successes and be positive that you will achieve a successful outcome once the crisis has passed.
4. Courage and Humility
According to Susan Tardanico in her Forbes Article, courageous leaders all exhibit the same behaviours.
They confront reality head-on, always wanting to know the true state of their organisations. Seeking feedback and listening through 360-degree feedback helps them to continually refresh their leadership style and move their organisations forward. They say what needs to be said and have real conversations, putting even unpopular opinions on the table. Courageous Leaders encourage pushback and seek alternative viewpoints. They communicate openly and frequently and don’t hide behind jargon. Show your humility as a leader by giving credit where it is due and holding yourself accountable for the decisions that you make, and honouring your commitments.
5. Teamwork makes the dream work
As a leader, it's important to know when to make independent decisions and when collaboration will yield a more holistic solution to a problem.
As an individual, it's unlikely that you will have all the answers to all the questions. Engage your team in brainstorming and dialogue and listen carefully to their ideas. You may not always agree at face value with what they bring to the table, and careful evaluation of these ideas could cause a solution that you may not have thought of yourself.
Collaboration brings rich perspectives that will enable you not only to develop an action plan to address the issue but also to gain the commitment of the team that will act and implement it.
In his book, Superminds, Thomas Malone, the founding director of the MIT Centre for Collective Intelligence, shows how groups of people working together in “superminds” — like hierarchies, markets, democracies, and communities — have been responsible for almost all human achievements in business, government, science, and beyond.
As a leader, your role is to steer your organisation through rough seas and calm. By following these principles you will have as much smooth sailing as possible in these turbulent times. For the rest, contact DLK Group, and we’ll partner with you to build a successful organisation underpinned by robust technology.