Introduction

Leadership refers to the skill acquired by a person by organizing a group of people to meet the desired business goals. They are the individuals which are confident enough to lead and pave the way for others. This skill also enables a person to seamlessly achieve organizational targets and goals within the given timeframe along with managing many people and projects simultaneously. An employer seeker always looks toward hiring candidates who have strong leadership skills which prove valuable not only for the employees but also for the organization.

What are the attributes of an effective leader?

An effective leader must possess a variety of traits and characteristics that would encourage the team members to follow in his or her footsteps and the instructions so mentioned. Naturally, the team leaders had certain qualities such as compassion and integrity, while a person can also add such leadership skills through formal training and experience. Being an effective Leader can instil confidence in the team as well as contribute to the growth of the department through improved team productivity.

An effective leader must have:

• The ability to communicate well
• Influence or motivate the team members to perform well, achieving the benchmarks set within the prescribed limit.
• To handle and delegate the responsibilities to the members as per the capability of each team member.
• Listen to the feedback
• Must possess the flexibility to come up with a solution to problems in the ever-changing workplace.

A good leader is responsible for bringing out the best abilities in his or her team members and further motivating them to work in cooperation to achieve the organizational goals and objectives.

Top Leadership skills 

• Communication- As an effective leader one must succinctly give brief details to the employees starting right from the organizational goals to the specific task that they need to perform. Be it one-on-one, departmental, or communication through emails, phone calls, chat, or social media, all such communications must have been embedded within a leader with perfection. A steady flow of communication must be established between the leaders and staff members either by the way of adopting an open-door policy or by maintaining regular conversation with the workers. While the leaders must mark their availability to discuss the issues and concerns with the employees if any.

Another skill that must be adopted as a leader is listening, a soft skill that gets valued at the end of each employer. The possession of this skill would lead the projects and tasks to be better understood by team members and help in building strong relationships as well. Good listening skills serve as an ingredient in solving many problems and resolving conflicts. The job employers look towards this ability during job interviews so that much cooperation is maintained within the workplace.

Other skills which are related to communication involve:

1. Active listening- and the active element where an individual takes the step to draw out the details which might not be shared otherwise by another individual. It includes paying utmost attention to the conversation without adding any interruption in between then brief back to what was said.
2. Articulating- refers to the ability of the speaker to speak with eloquence and fluency. It defines the way of expressing your ideas and thoughts in much crisp and clear manner.
3. Business storytelling- just like marketing, branding, and sales have evolved with the growing time, business storytelling is seen as a skill building customer loyalty and motivating members of the organization. Employees who develop a compelling storyline have a better chance of advancing within the organization and increasing their compensation.
4. Clarity- clear thoughts and ideas must be developed within an employee
5. Concision- being concise in expressing thoughts stays efficient for both the employees and the organization.
6. Explaining and expressing- people usually fail in expressing their ideas and thoughts which results in conflicts and misunderstandings.
7. Facilitating group conversation- facilitating brief discussions and short conversations helps in keeping both ends clear and brings efficiency to the work operations.
8. Non-verbal communication- gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, eye contact, body language, and postures all these elements play a crucial role when one is representing oneself in the professional world.
9. Presentation and public speaking- giving an effective presentation that instils within individuals the information so conveyed as art that an employee must possess and the same goes for public speaking as well where one must be able to engage with the audience.
10. Reducing ambiguity- the confusion and unclear things must be removed from the process of development as an effective leader.

• Motivation– leaders play an important role in motivating employees or team members to enable them to outperform and cover the extra mile to contribute to the success of the organization. Payment of a fair salary is not enough it would also need to accommodate incentives and rewards along with like- building employee self-esteem and gaining recognition, awarding them with bonuses on the extra contributions made to add success to the firm or shouldering employees with new responsibilities to increase their investment of time and efforts in the company. To evoke the spirit of productivity and passion among the employees, leaders must learn the spirit to motivate their team members.

Skills in line with effective motivational skills include:

1. Allowance in terms of employee autonomy
2. Evaluating the interest areas of the staff
3. Asking for suggestions and recommendations if any
4. Mentoring
5. Listening to employees’ concerns and bringing solutions to the same.
6. Contribute to employee’s growth by imparting them productive and challenging work
7. Recognizing efforts and granting rewards
8. Understanding employee’s differences

• Delegation- those leaders who try indulging in doing so many tasks finally struggle in getting nothing done. They feel delegation of work is a sign of weakness, which can turn out to be a strength. For the delegation, one needs to recognize the skills of each employee and then assign duties to each employee based on their skill set. Skills required to be a good delegator include:

1. Accepting feedback from employees
2. Allotting resources required for production to employees accordingly
3. Evaluating employee’s strengths and weaknesses and then allotting the tasks
4. briefing the expectations
5. Assessing and evaluating employee performance
6. Recognizing measurable outcomes
7. Prioritizing and aligning the tasks
8. Training and time management
9. Instilling trust in employees

• Positivity and trustworthiness- Emittance of a positive attitude enables leaders to create a happy and healthy work environment to work in. It enables an employee or a leader himself to bear a stressful day with a smile. Simple acts like asking employees about their weekend or vacation plans will develop a positive atmosphere in the office, and raise morale among staff members. If the employees see a positive work environment, then they would be willing enough to work extra hours and contribute best to the success of the organization.

Employees always look towards a work environment where they could move to their head or leader without any hesitance in case of any questions or concerns. A leader needs to exemplify integrity as employees would only trust those leaders whom they respect. A leader can convey his trustworthiness through:

1. Being accountable
2. Following business ethics
3. Being confidential and conscientious
4. Reflecting empathy and honesty
5. Reliability and respect
6. Emotional intelligence
7. Bringing integrity

• Creativity –a leader, is shouldered with a responsibility to take numerous decisions which should inculcate creative content and thoughts to attract potential customers and even should think outside the box. It would ultimately leave an impact on a large number of employees as they would be inspired and impressed enough by the leaders who not always prefer taking safe pathways but also conventional and risky ventures leading to maximum benefit.
• Responsibility- A leader stays responsible for the success and failure of his team. If the whole blame falls over then the leader must be responsible enough due to wrong tasks performed by the team members. As a leader is responsible for building a team and performing all relevant functions of delegation and motivation so if a leader is seen pointing fingers at the employees as the reason for failure, then they would eventually lose all respect gained during the years. They must accept the mistakes and failures and must move towards devising clear solutions for bringing improvement.
• Flexibility- leaders need to be flexible enough to inculcate any changes that come their way instantly. Employees will appreciate your ability to accept changes in stride and creatively problem-solve.

Conclusion – An effective leader is one who not only brings all teams together and instills amongst them the spirit of integrity and cooperation but also motivates them to extract the best out of them. Open to suggestions and feedback is another aspect that enables them to stand out as an effective leader and generate the best outcomes.