Developing Leadership Skills

Strong leadership abilities are necessary to ensure the success of any activity performed by a team. Leadership refers to a process through which one person uses the help and support of others towards achieving a particular goal or task. For one to be a truly effective leader, he/she must posses some leadership skills. Only then can one interact better with his followers and hence foster productivity. In this paper, I shall analyze some of the skills expected of a leader and evaluate how they apply in my leadership style.The most important skill that a leader should have is the ability to identify his/ her team. Team identity is of great importance because it enables a leader to know who is on a team and the purpose of the team (Adair, 2010). Understanding a team’s mode of operation enables the leader to make decisions that are considerate to all members need’s thereby instilling morale and boost team spirit.Motivational skills are among the core attributes that a leader must posses. Motivation is defined as a “process of stimulating people to action to accomplish desired goals” (Kondalkar 2002, p.245).Bearing in mind the fact that the leader is tasked with marshaling the organization’s resources to accomplish some organizational goal, it can be rightfully stated that part of the role of the leader is to motivate his staff to achieve certain desired goals. As such, an exemplary leader must possess motivational skills to ensure that the employees have a high degree of commitment in their performance.Similarly, communication skills are of great importance to a leader. According to Greene and Burleson (2003) communication is arguably the corner stone on which any successful relationship, be it business or personal, is built. As such, a great leader should be able to effectively communicate the organizational goals, mission, vision and regulations to his/her subordinates. In so doing, the leader has a guarantee that set tasks shall be executed effectively and efficiently. This ensures that the organization works towards success.In addition, Adair (2010) asserts that a great leader should possess conflict resolution skills. In all organizations, there arise contentious issues which elicit different reactions from the organization members at some point in time.

How these issues are diffused may spell out the difference between the subsequent success and failure of the organization. Having conflict resolution skills can play a crucial role in ensuring that the crises or contention is managed in a diplomatic manner.On the same note, a great leader should be flexible. By this I mean that a leader should be aware of his/her employee’s emotions and traits and consider them while making decisions. Disregarding these aspects may invariably lead to the failure of a team and subsequently, the organization.In regard to the above skills, I often fall short when it comes to motivating fellow colleagues. This is mainly due to the fact that I do not interact well with others and I cannot eloquently express myself while under stress. This is most disturbing since communication and motivation are core attributes that can be used to promote team work.Regardless of these shortcomings, I believe that I can improve on these skills, thereby ensuring that I become a better leader in the future. Leadership seminars are seen as one of the way through which people can be empowered.Conflict management, communication and motivational skills can be gained through such seminars thus equipping an individual with ways and means of how to deal with issues arising from workplace interactions. Adoption of a policy of openness to dissimilarity can further act in the good of workplace communication.This paper set out to investigate what effective leadership consists of in business and organizations setting. To this end, the paper has highlighted the skills expected from good leadership and subsequently articulated how the skills of an effective leader impact on the organization.It has been seen that the adoption of an effective leadership skills in an organization will yield to higher productivity which will subsequently result in the attainment of the organizational goals of increased productivity. From the discussions forwarded in this paper, it has been noted that a lack of these leadership skills can lead to lack of focus and generally unmotivated workers hence lowers profitability of the entire organization.

References

Adair, J. (2010). Develop Your Leadership Skills: Develop Yourself as a Leader; Lead at a Strategic Level; Grow Leaders in Your Organization. USA: Kogan Page Publishers.

Greene, O., & Burleson, R. (2003). Handbook of communication and social interaction skills. New York: Routledge.