Quality of Good Leaders

In a recent survey, among the top three reasons why people choose to stay in an organization is the quality of the leaders. When asked further, what are the characteristics of a good leader that you prefer to work for?. These are their answers.

a. Open mind and good listeners.

Being a good listeners alone is not enough, what is needed is the willingness to consider the feedback. This will encourage people to speak without fear. It helps the leaders to identify the blind spots which, if ignored, can be detrimental to the organisation.

b. Being Objective and Impartial.

This is one action that can spoil the other good things a leader had done. Being objective are required in the decisions of the leaders. There should be a hidden agenda or what appear to be favoring a certain people.

c. The leaders have to have the competency and the desire to achieve.

The basic element of willing and able to do always discussed in management. To gain respect, a leader had to show that he has the knowledge and skill in the area he is entrusted, and on top of that he need to display his readiness to work to achieve the desired goals.

While leadership quality to steer the organistion to achieve their objective is important, the ability to develop oneself is also strongly seeked upon by the staff. It is rare to find staff who do not like to see himself develop. As such, many of the workers now will be looking for the opportunities to retool and develop himself, especially if you are still young and can look up to bigger and meaningful future.

Lead by Example: The Effective Leadership

Leadership has been an area of interest for both the researchers, academician and the practitioners themselves. The inspired leaders to be will very much interest to learn the job's skills and learn from the experiences of others. The researchers had identified 5 key elements that can produce the highly competitive leaders. They are:

1. Lead by example.

The leader is the role model. The how to elements of effective leaders have to be positively demonstrated by the leaders in such away to encourage the staff to follow his foot-steps. That mean the leader would be able to show how to implement the following stated practices .

2. Inspired a shared vision.

This may have many subsets, firstly he should be able to build up a credible vision, then get it to be shared and trusted by other people to the extend that the vision is owned and driven by the people. There are various ways to get it shared, one of which is to get the staff involved in the formulation of the vision.

3. Challenge the existing processes.

It is too often that we are still stuck or inherit outdated processes or way of doing things. If it was good for the company last year, it does not mean it is acceptable now. Only by challenging it that the processes can be improved.

4. Enable other to Act.

A way to be thought through on how to get other to take the lead. The people below you may need time to learn and they may make mistake or move slower then if you were to do yourself. Every body need time and spaces to grow. You need to encourage and guide them.

5. Encourage them by heart.

People can sense if you are sincere or not and most would like to be successful. Give them chance and sincere guidance, then they will grow and bloom.

The effective leaders would lead by example and make their staff grow. When the people grow, the company will grow too.

skills of good manager

If you are new to the job as a manager, you may be wondering what are skills of good manager. Believe me, this question is being asked even be a seasoned manager.

Why is it so. There are many reasons. To start with, the type of skill set has changed. This is caused by the change of the environment and the changing challenges of business. Twenty years ago, there was no such thing as the internet, now the skillful usage of internet is becoming a necessity.

Enclosed below are the required quality of a good manager. Learn it and you will be respected by your staff and your bosses. Respect and trust are necessary to enable you to get your jobs done.

1. Expertise: It does not matter in what business you are in and in what department you are working, you need to have the basic knowledge of your business. If you work in an airline, you need to know airline business. If you company is offering public training and education, you need to know about training and education.

Having the business knowledge is important to know what is important to the business. It can also become a common trait that unite all the staff an an organisation.

2. People centered. Researches have shown that as you go higher in the corporate ladders, the focus is shifting from task centered to people centered. People centered does not mean that your neglect to focus on getting the result. However the method of getting the result has changed significantly. Instead of focusing on how to do the job personally, as a manager, the focus now is on how to get other people to do the job effectively. The basic definition of manager is getting the job done through another people.

3. Experienced. The experiences are not necessarily translated to mean the number of years in services. It is about the richness and the variety. Your ability to perform multi-task, drive result and manage the scarce resources are important. It is easy to manage in time of abundance, and more demanding at time of hardship.

4. Integrity. It is the ability to uphold principles and know what is right and wrong. The basic business ethic and religious value will shape ones behavior both when hard-pressed or in the absent of observers.

Without the solid foundation, it becomes too easy to sway into 'illegal' or morally questionable decisions of behaviors. The basis ethics study the issue of rights and wrongs and the relationship of means to the ends. It always fall short compared to the religious guidance.

5. Good Communicator. Many may fall into the trap of thinking that good communicator is the ability to deliver good speech or lively presentation. They are known as good orators or presenters. Communication of the process sending and receiving message and it has always have to be two ways.

We may meet leaders or managers who are good orators, and dislike to hear things of not to his liking. This sort of leaders or managers remind me of the old fable of the " The Emperor's New Invisible Clothes" Probably it best to leave him/her on frolic of his own.

There more to the required skills for a good manager. The above act as the foundation or as the basic building block. The other will be built upon a solid base.