The overall success of an organization is determined by its leadership in their key activities. Same goes for when a business fails in achieving their organisational goals, the blame will be put on management. Hence, everything depends on the leadership and how it is applied to the organization’s functionalities. Success or failure, it all comes down to the leadership skills and how they help in achieving organisational success. Back in the day, a leader was born into their role. It depended on their wealth, political influence, or social class. But a leader in the modern technological world is someone with a personal attitude and willingness to create a better environment. Someone who works to improve the situation and bring it to greater levels. Leadership skills which lead to organizational success are therefore crucial.
Leadership skills are not something you are born with, but they can certainly be trained. The willingness to motivate others, and to ensure that all employees benefit from the situation is what makes a great leader. Therefore, it’s important to know these 5 key leadership skills for organizational success, as they will help you improve. Is your organization looking for a new manager? Contact us to gain access to our talent pool of over 30,000 skilled professionals. Or, we will be happy to do the sourcing for you.
1. Communication
A good leader leads by their vision. But finding a clear vision can however be difficult. Formulating a vision can be difficult. Building a story line around a vision can be difficult. But, getting someone’s buy-in and explaining your vision to someone in simple and understandable words is probably the most difficult thing about being a leader. And this is why communication skills are so important. It is one of the most important leadership skills to have in order to achieve organizational success. Being able to communicate with people is an essential skill for a leader. Not everyone communicates in the same way, so a leader needs to be able to adapt to whoever she/he is talking to in that moment. Reading the other person, both what they are saying but also their body language. A good leader needs to be able to communicate important information and their decisions in a way that everyone understands it.
2. Employee motivation
We all learned about the Hertzberg’s motivational factors in business school. You know the ones where motivational factors improve employee satisfaction. Well, this also means that the hygiene factors that can be provided through the organisation in terms of monetary benefits, company policies etc, can only do so much. To motivate an employee to go the extra mile is all up to their leader. But why is it so important? Well, it is the intrinsically motivated employees who drive change, that drive improvement. They will bring value for themselves, but also for the environment around them and for the company in general. As a successful leader, you need the skills of understanding each and everyone’s buttons that needs to be pushed, to light the fire for intrinsic motivation. Which brings us to our 3rd leadership skill for organizational success; positivity.
3. Positivity
At some point in your working life, working week, working day, we all have those moments of ups and downs. We get stuck with a task we don’t want to do, and we don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel because the workload keeps building up. Working with other people means having human problems. In all those moments, it can sometimes help to have someone as a sparring partner. Someone that helps you to get a different opinion, facilitates you in taking a step back. Someone that makes you take a different standpoint, or simply see things in a different light. It’s a healthy amount of positivity that we are looking for in a sparring partner. And having someone like that as your leader, boss, or manager, can turn your rainy working day into something productive. A leader that manages to stay positive during difficult times is truly what differentiate a good from a bad one.
4. Creativity
Positivity and creativity are closely related. Leaders do not have to be experts in their field. However, all our learning and expertise is built on prior required knowledge. And at some point we all get stuck, we reach the end of a one way street. That’s when you need the creativity of a leader to not only challenge your way of thinking, but to think outside the box. Much like a sparring partner when you are having a bad day, a leader should also be able to help you when you run out of ideas. Offering their creativity, and putting new ideas into their employees heads is an essential skill. Providing their employees with a side road to get out of their one way street. A good leader needs to be able to adapt, and be flexible in times of crisis. Business is a volatile profession, and creativity will help in the sharp turns.
5. Ownership
How do you treat something you are renting for a day, compared to something you own? We all differentiate between being responsible for something temporarily, or actually owning it and being responsible for it in the long run. This is also true in business life. What it takes from a leader is ownership. Owning the decisions you made, but also owning the mistakes you’ve made. Fixing them, finding new ways forward, showing strength and taking responsibility for your actions. You can’t be the best at everything and expect to never make a mistake. That is not the definition of a great leader. No, what makes a great leader is someone who learns from their mistakes. Someone who treats their mistakes as a valuable lesson, and brings this knowledge with them in future decisions. Whatever decision you make, whether it turns out to be a good or a bad one, just make sure you own it. Learn from it. And even if the decision you made was the best one you’ve made so far, there is always room for improvement!
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