Whether you want to start your own business in the near future, are already running a business of your own or are thinking about different ways to get better results in your current career, one of the best things to consider doing is investing your time and efforts into improving your skills as a business leader. Whether you are running your own company or are employed in a management position, you will be able to get further if you have the ability to inspire others and get the most from your team.
Studies have found that the most effective business leaders tend to be individuals who are willing to go above and beyond for their team and build strong connections with the people that work for them. If you’re hoping to get better results in your place of employment or in your own business, here are some of the top ways that you can develop better business leadership skills and get on track to getting the results that you want.
Understand Your Leadership Style
To become a better leader, it’s important to have a better understanding of where you are at currently as a leader and what kind of leadership style you have. Spend some time thinking about your strengths and weaknesses as a leader right now and use this information to figure out which areas might need more work than others. Consider your main leadership qualities and determine whether they are a help or a hinderance when it comes to your leadership results. It’s important to be honest with yourself. It might also help to discuss these questions with people that you work with, to get another perspective on yourself as a leader.
Improve Your Knowledge
When it comes to your business career, improving your knowledge is something that you should be committed to doing on a regular basis in order to keep your confidence high and demonstrate to others that you are a leader who is dedicated to personal development and learning new things. There are lots of different options to consider when it comes to improving your knowledge. You can find online short courses, work with a business mentor or coach, or you may even want to consider getting a masters in leadership from St Bonaventure University where you can learn more about becoming a better leader and prepare yourself for management positions or running your own business in the future.
Become a Better Coach
The most effective business leaders today are not people who sit at a desk giving orders. A good business leader knows that to be truly effective in their work, they need to be prepared to coach others and spend time building relationships with the members of their team. When it comes to effective coaching and guiding, some people might be naturally better at it than others. But even if you’re always getting compliments on your coaching style, there might still be lots of things that you can do to improve your skills and become an even better coach such as taking a mentoring course or working with a coach yourself to get feedback and develop new skills that you can apply in your business or workplace.
Become a Better Communicator
How you listen to and communicate with your team is likely going to be one of the main things that set you apart as a good leader. If you want to get better at business leadership, then you need to focus on improving your communication skills. You’ll need to consider what you can do to get better at active listening. While this is something that you can certainly get better at with regular practice, you may also want to think about taking short courses in active listening skills or even counselling skills to develop a better ability for listening and communicating with others. The best leaders in business tend to be people who are approachable and easy to communicate with. The better you are when it comes to communication, the more likely your team members are going to be comfortable to come to you if they have feedback or are experiencing issues, which makes for better workplace relationships and often, better productivity.
Be Trustworthy and Honest
As a good leader, not being honest and trustworthy when it comes to how you behave with the members of your team is going to lose you a lot of respect very quickly, and any other good leadership skills that you might have spent time working on and developing up until now are likely going to be rendered useless. A good business leader is somebody who has the ability to own up to mistakes when they make them and sees errors as an opportunity to learn from rather than something to be ashamed of. The main thing to bear in mind is that you do not have to be perfect all the time or get everything right every time if you want to be a better business leader. Honesty and trustworthiness go a long way when it comes to building good relationships with your team, and others will always respect and relate to somebody who is honest about their shortcomings, self-reflective and able to learn from their mistakes.
Set the Example You Want to See
One of the main things that makes all the difference between somebody who’s just a boss and somebody who is an effective and influential business leader is that a good leader sets the tone for the rest of the workplace and is an excellent example to everybody else. Of course, you can sit at a desk all day telling others how you’d like them to act and behave but if you’re not acting and behaving that way yourself, then you’re probably not going to get the best results, and even less respect from others. To inspire your team, you will need to be committed to being the change that you want to see and leading the way as a shining example for all to follow.
Ask for and Act on Feedback
When you are working towards becoming a better business leader, getting feedback and acting on it is one main part of the process. Often, you might not notice things about your leadership style that are obvious to others, so one good way to figure out which areas might need to be prioritized when it comes to the work that you are doing is to ask people to give you feedback, and then act on it. Asking for and taking feedback from your team can also be an effective exercise for improving your communication and active listening skills, especially if you get feedback that you were not expecting or receive constructive criticism.
Be Passionate About What You Do
Most people are not going to look to somebody for leadership if that individual doesn’t seem passionate about what they do and the role that they are in. One of the main qualities of a good leader is that they’re not simply about getting tasks completed, but they are genuinely passionate and enthusiastic about the work that they do, and this shines through in everything. It’s important to consider different ways that you can demonstrate your passion for what you do and share it with your team at every opportunity that you get when working on your leadership qualities.
Recognize the Work Your Team Does
Have you ever gone above and beyond at work only for the manager in charge to barely notice any of the effort that you are putting in? It can be seriously frustrating and feeling unseen and unappreciated at work is one of the main reasons why some people decide to only do the bare minimum, and a good leader will know this. People who are satisfied in their job and feel appreciated and valued for the work that they do tend to perform better at work, are usually more loyal to their employer and contribute to a strong workplace morale. As a leader, there are several things that you should get into the habit of doing when it comes to recognizing your team including motivating, incentivizing, and genuinely appreciating the effort that people put in.
Be Willing to Learn from Others
Working for somebody who refuses to accept that there is always something that they can learn is frustrating. The best leaders are humble and know that when it comes to learning something new, it can often come from the most unexpected places. There’s no way that you’re going to be able to know everything no matter how much experience or education you have, and you never know who is going to be able to teach you something new, so be open to learning new things no matter who you are interacting with.
Whether you want to boost your management career or are starting your own company, there’s a lot to be gained from spending the time and effort to improve your leadership skills.
