Top 11 Qualities That Make A Great Leader

There are different styles of leadership and they can (nearly) all be good.

1. Be Authentic

The important thing is to be yourself: know your own personality so that you can be authentic in the way you engage with other people and the way you use your authority. Understand how you as an individual can best have positive impact and influence with others and try to understand how they perceive you. Always be clear in communicating your values, what you care about and what you stand for – through your behaviour as well as your words.

2. Boost Your Confidence

If you want to be a leader you have to be prepared to lead. It does require self-confidence. You have to be able to judge when to listen, when to think and when to decide. When you make decisions you need to stick with them through adversity if you are sure they are right, and to see them through. People like continuity. If at some point you conclude that you were wrong, you need to be big enough to change and to explain why. The best solution is to make the right decisions! It is more important to make good decisions than fast decisions.

3. Display Emotional Intelligence

But you can only lead if other people are prepared to follow. That means you have to win and retain their respect, not just for your position but for you as a person, for your experience, skills, and competence. A leader has to have a strong rapport with, and understanding of, the organization and the people he or she is leading: what they want, and what they will accept if they can’t have what they want. Emotional intelligence and intuition are important in forming these links.

4. Motivate and Inspire

In leadership, people and relationships are more important than tasks. Tasks do matter, but the main role of a good leader is to motivate and inspire other people to do the tasks well. You need to know how to delegate and be the leader of other leaders. The leader is the conductor of the orchestra, not the first violin. But you also need to know when to step in and take responsibility. Don’t be afraid to say ‘stop’ or ‘no’ if you think things are going wrong. And don’t let other people push you into a decision which you are not comfortable with.

5. Set the Vision

You have to set a vision. That requires a clear sense of purpose, a clear sense of direction and a clear picture of the destination. You need to be able to explain in terms that people understand and support what you want to achieve, why you want to achieve it, how you will go about it and how everyone will know when you get there. That is what I have been trying to do with Diplomatic Excellence.

6. Be a Good Communicator

Good leaders are good communicators. You have to do it all the time. It means thinking about what other people know and how they are experiencing what you are doing, especially change. It’s important to communicate in a way other people can relate to and engage with. And you have to make it easy for people to remember what you are saying: make it simple, clear and coherent.

7. Lead the Delivery

Once you’ve set the vision and engaged other people through communication, you need to lead the delivery. That’s where a clear understanding of the end goal, and metrics and evaluation to demonstrate outcomes, are important. It’s a good idea to stay ahead of the delivery curve, setting interim goals along the way which are stretching but attainable. Much of what I’ve just described in the last three points is encapsulated by Steve Radcliffe in the model he discussed at the Leadership Conference last year: future, engage, deliver.

8. Manage Your Energy

It’s important to manage your energy. Leaders are constantly on display and under scrutiny. You need to have energy in reserve so that you can manage your mood and the image you project, and have something in the tank when crises happen (as they inevitably will). Learn to recognise when you are tired or stressed, and how that makes you behave. Watch out for the signs. Learn also to recognise where your positive energy comes from and what takes it away.

9. Build the Right Team

A good leader will put a lot of effort into building the right team around him or her. You need people you trust, who are on your side, who challenge and are honest with you and whose judgement you respect. You need to be able to depend on their support when the going gets tough. Being a leader can feel lonely and exposed: so you need to have your support systems in place to help you through the harder times.

10. Trust Your Instinct

If it doesn’t feel right, the chances are it isn’t right. I’m a great believer in the power of the subconscious, given time, to steer us to the right answers. That’s why I often prefer to have a couple of discussions before taking a difficult decision, even if that slows down the process. It helps give me certainty about what I think, and it helps the wider leadership group understand each other’s point of view and build consensus. The end result is a better decision with better buy-in.

11. Make Mistakes

Finally, accept that we all make mistakes. Nobody is perfect. When you do, try to learn the lessons, but don’t be destabilized. Someone told me once: “don’t chew the cud”. Keep moving forward, be resilient, remember that things will get better. And smile.

Author

Lee Glynn is a dedicated individual with over 18 years experience & knowledge within the wonderful world of recruitment. Having held roles as a Managing Director, Non Executive Director, Director, Leader, Business Adviser, Mentor, Strategist and Trainer to the Recruitment, Staffing, Professional Industry. Lee has extensive knowledge and experience for all frameworks and business models inc (Crown Commercial Services, London Procurement Partnership, NHS Collaborative Procurement Partnership, HealthTrust Europe & NHS Shared Business Service that are used by the NHS & Private sectors. Lee Glynn is currently helping the NHS & Private hospitals reduce their Agency and permanent spend. This article has been published on Linkedin.

January 31, 2017July 1, 2022

Which of These 5 Types of Project Managers Are You?

The outcome of a project largely depends on the behaviour of the manager as their actions will directly influence the behaviour of the team. Even with all the efforts, employees may put forth to salvage a once positive work environment, at the core of every toxic working environment is the bad manager. There are different types of managers, and each one has their own characteristics that determine how employees will react, the working environment and overall production. Five common types include:

1. Laissez-Faire

‘Laissez-Faire’, is French for leaving things to take their own course without interference. These types of managers tend to leave subordinates to get on with the work on their own and have little to no communication with them. They fail to provide regular feedback when supervising. Though this form of management may seem irresponsible, it requires a lot of trust. Highly experienced and capable employees need very little interference, as they are trusted to do the task to the best of their abilities. However, when it comes to employees with limited experience, this form of management means there will be low production value as these employees feel they do not have to do any work due to the lack of authority they have over them. It can also make these employees a lot harder to control and since work is not being done, resources, money and time are wasted, which in turn increases the costs of the project.

2. Autocratic

This form of management is most suitable for places such as the Army as it gives the manager complete power. These types of managers make all the decisions with very little or no input from the subordinates, and since they have total authority over them, employees find it hard to challenge the manager. This can create an atmosphere of fear and because of this quality of work and production may increase, however, retention rates might increase along with it, as employees may feel threatened and begin to resent their job. Nonetheless, this form of management might be suitable for employees who need close supervision as they need to be told what to do and when, but creative employees will find it hard to work in an autocratic environment.

3. Participative

This type of manager values every member of the team and listens to whatever input employees may have. However, the manager ultimately makes the final decision. This form of management will increase morale as employees make contributions towards the decision-making process and they feel that their opinions matter. With this management style, the employees easily accept changes in the company as they played a role in the process. As morale increases, production will increase along with it, making this a very effective management style.

4. Transactional

This management style is used to give out either rewards or punishments to employees depending on their performance. The manager along with the employees set goals together and agree on rewards or punishments depending on whether or not they reach their goal. The employees then follow direction and instructions set by the managers in order to achieve the goal. The manager has the power to analyze the results of the project and either give out rewards and praise the employees or train the employees depending on the outcome.

5. Transformational

This type of management is used to increase the morale of the employees and is normally used in situations where employees feel discouraged. There are high levels of communication between the manager and the subordinates to reach their goals. These leaders motivate the employees and enhance efficiency and production using communication. These types of managers delegate smaller tasks to smaller teams and focus on the big picture to achieve their overall goals.

Conclusion

There are many different types of managers, and some are used specifically to adapt to certain situations. Some management styles are more effective than others however it depends on the type of employees they are supervising, the task at hand, and the goals that are set.

October 18, 2015July 1, 2022

29 Awesome Quotes on Risk Management

If you treat risk management as a part-time job, you might soon find yourself looking for one ’- Deloitte white paper (Putting Risk in the Comfort Zone)
I have learned that nothing is certain except for the need to have strong risk management, a lot of cash, the willingness to invest even when the future is unclear, and great people ’- Jeffrey R. Immelt
Thoughtfully assessing and addressing enterprise risk and placing a high value on corporate transparency can protect the one thing we cannot afford to lose trust ’- Dale E. Jones, vice chairman and partner with Heidrick & Struggles
We have no future because our present is to volatile. Will only have risk management ’- William Gibson
Risk management is a culture, not a cult. It only works if everyone lives it, not if its practiced by a few high priests ’- Tom Wilson
I think the rise of quantitative econometrics and a highly mathematical approach to risk management was the obverse of a decline in interest in financial history ’- Niall Ferguson
There is no doubt that Formula 1 has the best risk management of any sport and any industry in the world ’- Jackie Stewart
Stronger regulation and supervision aimed at problems with underwriting practices and lenders’ risk management would have been a more effective and surgical approach to constraining the housing bubble than a general increase in interest rates ’- Ben Bernanke
If you don’t invest in risk management, it doesnt matter what business you’re in, it’s a risky business ’- Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn
Adventure without risk is Disneyland ’- Douglas Coupland
Risk and time are opposite sides of the same coin, for if there were no tomorrow there would be no risk. Time transforms risk, and the nature of risk is shaped by the time horizon: the future is the playing field ’- Peter Bernstein, Against the Gods
As population susceptibilities are better understood, we will be in a better position than we are in today to make informed decisions about risk management ’- Samuel Wilson
Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash ’- General George Patton
All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger, but calculating risk and acting decisively ’- Niccolo Machiavelli
Total enterprise risk management is critical, but implementing it is both expensive and easier said than done. Even the most sophisticated financial institutions are still basically silo risk managers ’- Danny Klinefelter, Professor and Extension Economist with Texas AgriLife Extension, Texas A&M University
Playing it safe is the riskiest choice we can ever make ’- Sarah Ban
The question of whether or to what extent human activities are causing global warming is not a matter of ideology, let alone of belief. The issue is simply one of risk management ’- Malcolm Turnbull
Business people need to understand the psychology of risk more than the mathematics of risk ’- Paul Gibbons,
Risk comes from not knowing what your doing ’-Warren Buffett
You have to take risks. You will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen ’- Paulo Coelho
Risk is a function of how poorly a strategy will perform if the ‘wrong’ scenario occurs ’- Michael Porter, Competitive Advantage
Risk management should be an enterprisewide exercise and engrained in the business culture of the organisation ’- OSFI Superintendent Julie Dickson, June 1, 2011 (courtesy Ethidex)
Risk is our business ’- Oswald GrÃƒ¼bel, CEO at UBS
When our leaders accept the status quo, we run the risk of disaster ’- Max Bazerman from “Predictable Surprises”
The concept of ‘inherent risk’ is impossible to measure or even define. The idea of looking at risk absent all hard controls, soft controls, or mitigations, provides little or no useful information in most cases ’- Todd Perkins (from Journal of Applied Corporate Finance – volume 19 number 4)
It’s important to take risks but it’s idiotic to take them blindly ’- Terry Levine
Fail to identify the strategic risks and you fail as a business, no matter how well you manage your operational and project risks ’- Keith Baxter
Business as usual is business at risk ’- Deloitte white paper
Risk management is the identification, assessment, and prioritisation of risks ’- Wikipedia