The importance of leadership is vast and can be applied to a wide range of contexts, from businesses and organizations to personal projects and individual goals.
What is leadership?
Leadership refers to the process of influencing and inspiring people to get the best from them.
It involves having a vision for an organization and setting a clear direction so that employees will want to follow a good leader and respond positively to them.
Leadership is the art of coaching and developing people, so that they perform a variety of tasks willingly, enthusiastically, efficiently and effectively to achieve organizational goals.
Having leadership skills is also a key part of being a successful manager. Additionally, leadership is not exclusive to those at the top of the organizational structure, but it can be exercised in a variety of business situations at every level in the hierarchy.
Who are leaders?
Leaders are charismatic people who have something special about them that makes them stand out from the crown and make the crowd follow them.
While some argue that leaders are born with those natural abilities to create an aura around them that others find appealing, others argue that people can be trained to adopt the key attributes of good leadership.
In general, there are two types of leaders in a business organization:
- Official Leader who is established by an organization and therefore has the authority to give orders to others.
- Informal Leader who is not an official role but has natural flair and charisma in influencing other people.
Both types of leaders seek to create strong teams leading people who are committed to achieving the organization’s overall goals.
What makes a good leader?
Do you know what makes a good leader? What are some of the qualities a good leader?
There is a number of personal characteristics that have been identified as common qualities among effective leaders:
- Articulate. Good leaders must have the vision and sense of direction as to where the business should be going and be able to communicate it clearly with various stakeholders.
- Have positive self-image. Good leaders must have the ability of self-belief and the desire to succeed. They should also have self-confidence to promote support from others.
- Creative and innovative. Good leaders should be able to think beyond the obvious and to encourage others to do the same. This refers to the innovation and creation of new ways of thinking and doing things.
- Good problem solvers. Good leaders shall get to the ‘core’ of the problem and figure out a plan to fix it. Having an incisive mind will enable them to focus on the real issue rather than dealing with unnecessary details.
- Respond to change. Good leaders must have a strong sense of change and respond to it showing their dedication and commitment to the business at the same time.
- Multitalented. Good leaders are experts certain fields with good knowledge in everything else, so they can understand discussions about a wide range of issues affecting their business.
While not all business managers have all of these important characteristics of good leaders, their particular strengths and weaknesses will determine the style of leadership that they might adopt to lead.
Consequences of poor leadership
While excellent leadership can make a business grow and prosper in the long-term, poor leadership can do just the opposite – ruin the firm.
Poor leaders fail to communicate its vision to staff and win their approval. And without organizing workers effectively, the business will not be able to achieve its objectives.
The best managers are also good leaders of people – but some managers are not. Those leaders that focus too much on controlling the resources will fail communicate the sense of purpose so that others will understand and be prepared to follow.
Without clear and charismatic leadership workers will not be very well-managed, nor inspired to help the leader and the business reach new goals.
In summary, it is difficult to determine the key features of leadership and to identify the traits that make for good leaders, but no matter whether good leaders are born or made, they all need to possess certain traits that relates to both intelligence and personality.
