Leadership

By Frankie

Leadership comes in many forms – and as much as none of them are objectively the best, there are certain qualities within leadership that employers value more than others. I will take you through what these skills are, how to display them in the workplace, and how to develop your skills to make you a more effective leader and competitive candidate for any job!

Leading By Example

As a leader, you often are doing work that isn’t similar to who you’re managing, which can cause a feeling of disconnection between you and your team. This disconnection can completely undermine the hard work that you put in, as your team members might see you as thinking you're “too good” to do their work, which can decrease motivation. This is why, to become a good leader, you need to be able to show your team that you’re willing to do the same “dirty work” as them. And I don't mean constantly jumping on people’s projects and finishing them off – that would only lead to a more disconnected relationship. I mean that if your team is struggling to meet a deadline or do a task, you hop in and do the same work as them, creating a relationship where you’re both equal in terms of your tasks. By doing this and showing that you’re dedicated and willing to go that extra mile to help your team, they’re more likely to get behind your decisions – creating a more productive work environment.

To properly lead by example, you need to embody the values and behaviors you expect from your team. To do this, your decisions should never undermine the values or standards you expect, and if they do, you need to be able to hold yourself accountable. To show your team that you embody the values you set, you need to communicate your ideas and be transparent in your decision-making because if your team doesn’t know why a decision has been made, they won’t buy into the work that comes with it.

Fostering Community

If you're leading by example, you’re already halfway there. Now you need to create a community. To create such, your entire team needs to decide on a shared mentality and mission that everyone agrees will take you in the right direction. This helps everyone understand the standards, allowing them to hold each other accountable when standards slip – essentially making everyone a leader. Now, this isn’t there to create a “boiler room” where everyone is at each other's throats waiting for a slip-up. Instead, you need to be able to hold each other accountable in a constructive way, to help the team achieve the overall goal. So when mistakes are made, they should be viewed as such, learned from, and left in the past. In my opinion, this is a brilliant way to create a positive environment to work in, and will help everyone become more productive.

Creating this community is a long and tiresome process that will cause a lot of tough conversations and tense moments. These need to be looked at as one-offs and should be moved on from – once again with that same viewpoint – being focused on team success.

Being a “People Person”

To create this community, you’re going to need to be a people person. This doesn’t mean being an extrovert or being everyone’s best friend. It’s more about treating people with respect and understanding that we all work differently. By accepting that we all work in different ways, it can help you work out how members of your team work best, their preferred methods of communication, and how they receive information. This understanding can then help you adapt how you lead and manage specifically to each person, which can help you get more out of your workforce as they see that you care about them. In order to work out how members of your team differ, you need to have a strong set of communication skills to help get to know them better – so you all feel like “real people.” This is so important when trying to foster a community, as it’s hard to overcome the hiccups that come with such if you can’t communicate your opinions and see each other as people, not just coworkers.

How to Develop Your Leadership

The best way to gain leadership skills as a student is by saying yes to opportunities or even better – creating your own opportunities. If there’s something that you’re passionate about in your school, local area, or wider world – do something about it and don’t care if people judge you for doing it. Let's say that in your community, the streets are filled with litter and this is something you care about. You should start picking the litter yourself (leading by example). You then need to find other people who care about the same issue and work with them to grow the number of people who are helping pick litter – make it a shared passion and foster a community centered around it. And to build this sense of community, you're going to need people skills to get people on board and working together to achieve this goal. You might be thinking that you haven’t got the skills to do this, but if you don’t try to take on a leadership role, you’ll never manage to develop these skills. There are a billion different ways you can be a leader, this is just my personal preference that helps get the most out of a team while still creating a positive sentiment throughout the time you spend together.