Strong leadership builds efficient work teams.
The future success of your company depends on how strong your leadership is throughout the organization. Good leaders bring their own personality into their management style, but there are 10 rules for good leadership that every manager should follow. Train your management staff on the basic foundation of good supervisory skills, and reinforce those skills with regularly scheduled follow-up training sessions.
Lead by Example
If you ask your staff to take pay cuts to help the company stay profitable, then you should be prepared to do the same. A good manager is out in front of her team performing the tasks needed to get done and leading the group by example.
Stay Positive
When your employees see you panic, then they will start to panic. When you remain calm and stay positive in any situation, then you help your employees to focus and remain calm as well.
Make a Skills Inventory
A good leader knows the skill level of every one of his subordinates, and has that mental inventory on hand when delegating responsibility. Stay involved with your staff to make sure you remain updated on everyone's skill set.
A Professional Tone
If you have members of your staff that are giving you problems, then you need to address those problems immediately. But you should do so in a calm and professional tone. If you feel the need to have an outburst at a staff member, do so in a conference room far away from the rest of the group. Maintaining a professional tone is part of keeping your team focused and confident.
Share the Vision
As a leader, you are expected to have ideas on how the group can reach its goals and succeed. You need to share those ideas with the group so that they can gain confidence in the path they are following, and in your ability to lead them.
Get Involved
To be a good leader, you need to be working with your staff every day. You need to be helping your employees develop their careers and get the job done. Avoid sitting in your office and handing out instructions to your team. Get involved in your team's activities and be an active part of your work group.
Stay Educated
A good team leader is one that realizes that she always needs to be learning to stay ahead of the competition. Take training classes and attend seminars every chance you get. Try to take courses to further your education and let your employees know that you are involved in training classes to help inspire them.
Be a Good Listener
Managers can be good talkers, but an effective leader is also a good listener. The only way to gain valuable information from your employees and other people is to listen.
Know when to Say No
Part of being a good leader is making sure that you put your team in a position to win at all times. That means that you need to learn which activities are worth pursuing, and which are necessary to let go. You will not win every deal, nor will you meet every goal. But it is the deals you do get, and the goals you do reach, that count.
Keep Notes
It is impossible to remember every accomplishment and challenge dealt with by every member of your team. To properly evaluate your team and understand get the maximum performance from it, you need to keep notes on events as they happen. Refer to those notes during the annual employee appraisal, or when you are getting ready to start another major project.
