By Armando “BUTZ” Bartolome
Some people would wonder if it is truly possible for a results-driven leader to be able to build a relationship with his employees and still make them have fun while at work. It may seem impossible, but according to assessment data from thousands of leaders, leaders who were rated were successful in both skills.
The success of any company relies on various factors. One of them is how the big bosses are able to become such strong and effective leaders while keeping their feet on the ground which makes them more approachable by their employees. Being perfect in everything they do makes a leader become cold-hearted. But thankfully, all most successful entrepreneurs have realized the importance to have the heart despite having to implement strict rules for the improvement of the company.
Attributes of a Successful Leader
The study also showed that more young leaders excelled in running an effective and fun workplace environment. Leaders under the age of 30 years old were at least 2-3 times as likely to be effective at both results and engagement than those who were older. Additionally, those who were around the age of 40 years old and above appear to be more focused on either being results-driven or to be interpersonally strong.
You may have witnessed it yourself when you get to talk to young executives or managers. They would seem to be easier to talk to and has a heavier value on work relationships compared to much older leaders. Young leaders are strong-willed but they never set aside the need that they need to reach out to their employees so that they can feel that they are valued and that what they do for the company is part of its success. But of course, these leaders also have to draw the line between being the boss and that friendly person, otherwise, employees may think that they can just do and say whatever they please anytime. The older leaders, on the other hand, would rather want an environment where “work is work”. They are more interested in building a strong persona assuming that with this, they can easily influence others.
Between senior managers and supervisors, the latter is twice as likely to do both things. However, there seems to be a decline in both skills with age, whereby age and position are strongly interrelated with each other. In simplest terms, people with less authority feel that they have to rely on improving their people skills if they want to get the results they want. Additionally, older managers or leaders would also benefit from improving their people skills, even if they don’t completely realize it, however, they seem to be more focused on attaining results rather than build personal relationships with their employees.
Six Powerful Skills that Makes A Great Leader
Leadership is the ability of a person that can strongly drive a group of people to intently listen to him wherein he is able to look back at his past experiences, prior successes, and hurtful failures and from all of these, he responds accordingly as he moves forward in attaining his goal.
Leaders need to be empowered so that they can be more focused in identifying other people’s strengths by building them up, and by giving them the resources that can help strengthen the employees that will eventually have a positive impact on the company.
- Great Communication Skills
Everyone needs to know and understand a strategy that they need to be achieved. Simplify what you need to say and be sensitive to how you relay your message. Employees who are not well-informed or confused may become dissatisfied. Therefore, leaders who can communicate well and provide clear directions make a team more engaged.
Developing excellent COMMUNICATION skills is absolutely essential to effective leadership. The leader must be able to share knowledge and ideas to transmit a sense of urgency and enthusiasm to others. If a leader can’t get a message across clearly and motivate others to act on it, then having a message doesn’t even matter. – Gil Amelio
- Provides Inspirations and Motivation
Leaders need to have the ability to drive results and at the same time should highly inspire employees to drive in a good performance at work which is more likely to achieve results.
Leaders who inspire their employees to releases a kind of energy wherein people do their best. Making a positive difference generates loyalty, passion, commitment, and enthusiasm among employees.
- Creates stretch goals
A leader should be able to establish a clear set of goals that team members accept and have the ability to get employees to work harder. When these goals are created by the team, work doesn’t feel work, since each employee feels being valued and equally competent.
- High Integrity and Reliability
It is important that a leader establishes a positive trait wherein team members would feel that he is someone that they can trust. One way on how to establish trust in any kind of relationship is, to be honest in everything that one does. Setting a good example for the employees to increase their trust in their leader by doing things that they can do themselves rather than letting the employees do something that the leaders would never do.
- Help Others To Grow
A leader does not do all the work and let himself to always be in the limelight. He would let his subordinates improve themselves by providing them training or workshops for them to become more productive. Thus, developing new skills can elevate performance and create a culture that can be more fun and engaging.
- Accepts Feedbacks
A leader who refuses to hear suggestions from others will often come across problems. No one is perfect and no matter how wide the experience a leader may have, there are instances wherein there may still be a need to make some modifications with the presented strategies or techniques. However, if a leader is responsive and takes all feedbacks in a positive way, everything is bound to go on smoothly and becomes highly respected.
To become coachable, one needs to have humility, willingness to surrender control, and to have faith.
To become results-driven and at the same time have excellent people skills is a powerful combination that has a very surprising impact on the effectiveness of a leader.