Have you ever wondered what it takes to be an effective leader? With the requirement to have so many different skills and behaviours, it can be really tricky to understand.
To help simplify this, we’ve put together a simple model that helps you understand what’s required of an effective leader. We’ve called these the Foundations of Leadership.
There are 5 Foundations:
Attitude – Having the right attitude is key to being an effective leader. Understanding what leadership is and having the right vision and values is core. It’s about wanting to be a good leader.
Understanding – Learning to understand different personality types, developing a diverse team and understanding that cultural differences will need to be taken into account. Knowing how to adapt and change your style of communication and being aware or your own behaviour is vitally important.
Relationships – Developing effective relationships with your team, colleagues and other departments will go a long way to helping you become a great leader. Understanding the roles of the team members and what do do if conflict occurs are also really important.
Teams – Understanding what makes an effective team and how to get to this will put you in good stead. Using the team to help make decisions and solve problems will help you immensely and help the team feel as though they are listened to and invested in.
Performance – Simply put, as a leader you are there to ensure the team performs. Knowing how to set clear goals and objectives and how to monitor them is a good starting point. Them being able to motivate the team, reward good performance and manage under-performance are also really important.
The foundations can be used as a bit of a checklist. This can help you to build your own personal development plan to address any of the gaps you feel you have.
Our Leadership Skills Training Courses all have the 5 Foundations at their core. You can learn more about our Leadership Skills Training Courses here.
