Leaders help to create powerful, cohesive teams that enable organizations to achieve their targets. Part of being a great leader is understanding what the members of your team expect from you. You can use that knowledge to become a better leader and make them an even stronger team that can achieve anything.
Fallibility and Humility
Great leaders acknowledge weaknesses but focus on strengths. Admitting you’re not infallible strengthens your character and earns the respect of others you work with because it demonstrates humility. Admitting you can’t do something well is only a sign of weakness if you treat it that way. A smart leader freely admits he doesn’t know how to do everything and that simple statement allows him to work his strengths to their best advantage.
With humility, you can still improve after becoming an expert. If you aren’t humble, then arrogance kicks in, and that’s not healthy in a group dynamic. No team wants an arrogant leader or even arrogant team members.
Mutual Respect
Team members want to be respected as individual human beings and valued employees. They don’t want to be treated as a number and merely bossed around, which is what a manager would do. They also want their work to be respected and acknowledged for its good quality. Praise for good work should be given openly and freely because if it’s taken for granted, it’s seen as a lack of respect and is very bad for morale.
Before you can have mutual respect there must be self respect. Once you have respect for yourself, you and the team will develop respect for each other’s differences, whether it is cultural, racial, gender, level of experience or anything else. Once this is achieved, a strong bond will form that can become unbeatable.
Team and Individual Growth
One reason people work is to build on existing skills and develop new ones. It’s very important that a leader fully supports exploring the full potential of every single individual in the team as well as the team as a whole. If people are constantly learning and challenging themselves, they will be keen to work and perform to high standards. This is vital because if a leader’s team isn’t growing, their job becomes next to impossible.
Opportunities for promotion should be available for team members wishing to move upwards within the organization. If a team member has their eye on a particular position, the leader should be able to work with them to develop the necessary skills to fulfil the job requirements.
Trust Works Both Ways
Nobody likes the boss watching them all the time, but it’s vital that they’re available when necessary. People do need guidance and then to be left alone to get on with the work. This means the leader has to trust their team to do the best work possible and demonstrate that trust by letting them do it. This allows the team to prove themselves by meeting the required expectations.
Open Communications
A leader has to build rapport and keep the channels of communication open in both directions. A true leader knows the value of input from their team. The team wants to be kept up to date with any news that affects their role within the organization. Staff should feel comfortable in airing ideas and grievances alike and know that they will be listened to sincerely. It doesn’t matter if not all their ideas are accepted. Being able to voice them is the key.
Teams need the right leader to guide them. If these five conditions don’t exist, somebody has to address the problems before major issues arise. If, however, these expectations are all being met in your workplace, productivity, motivation and happiness will soar.
This article was originally published by Bill Hogg
