What makes someone a better leader?

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Methodology
Why leaders need to better themselves with time
The following are the factors that make good leader
Conclusion and recommendations
References

Introduction

In modern contemporary business world, leaders have the role of pioneering strategic moves that make their businesses competitive amidst of many players in different industries. To undertake effectively this role, managers should improve their management skills; improvement of one’s leadership skills takes individual efforts and support from their organization (Quinn, Faerman, Thompson, McGrath, St Clair, 2011).

At any one point, the level of efficiency that a leader has attained will be challenged by the changes within and without their company and industry, thus there is need for leaders to improve their skills continuously, knowledge, and decision-making approach. (DeSimone, Werner and Harris, 2002). This paper discusses how the practices that improves a leaders skills.

Methodology

To approach the subject, the paper will analyze the different practices that can improve leader’ skills as well as those that can nurture subordinates leadership skills; it will have a two dimensional approach where on one side talks of growing leaders and on the other improving existing leaders skills.

Why leaders need to better themselves with time

According to Ashkanasy, 2011, when multinationals are diversifying their businesses to different countries; the parent company’s management may be rendered ineffective in the new business environment however, his services are needed in the foreign venture; continuous improvement of one’s skills, management style, professionalism, and expertise is crucial.

There have been concern among scholars whether managers are born or made; what has come out is that with nurturing, training mentoring and guidance, everybody has the potential of being a manager. Supporter of the side that managers are developed challenge their counterparts by saying that every stage of life, people is faced with challenges those they have to handle; they are managing.

At an ideal situation, the way one handles an issue should change with age, experience, learning, consultancy, and situation at hand, the same happens with leaders, they need to develop their skills, with experience, and to be able to respond to different situations (Ashkanasy, 2011).

Although experience improves a leader’s skill, it is not enough to make him outstanding in all situations. Leaders’ continuous improvement is a source of rejuvenation to a business every time a change occurs in an industry; it leads to business competitiveness

The quality of decisions that managers make differentiate good ones and ineffective ones; one main reason why managers make ineffective decision is because they make yester decisions; when the decisions are implemented, it then leads to the failure of the company.

Managers are supposed to be futuristic, and have a clear vision and sense of direction of their organization; this can only happen if they keep improving their skills and business approaches. Effective leaders make the right decision at the right time and put into consideration all factors to a good decision.

Depending with the experience, training and responsibilities, some aspects need to be learning, developed, grown natured and tapped. Human beings have different talents, however ,the talents cannot be of any benefit if they have not been nurtured (Mastrangelo, 2004).

The following are the factors that make good leader

Continuous Learning and development

Globalization is on a fast rise; there are new change, in business processes, new strategies, new approaches and new ways of doing business. In almost every sector of business, there is a change likely to affect the way managers are handling issues. the changes call for continuous improvement of one’s skills.

For example, traditionally the marketing departments had the main role of making a sale; they were directly persuading buyers to make a purchase; currently, the department is using an indirect approach that aims at improving business-customer relationship. Leaders need to be aware of such changes so that they can make effective decisions (Xiao-Ping, 2011).

Leaders need to be taking various courses that sharpen their skills; they should have strategic courses offered by scholars and people who have had success in their management. The areas of training vary with a person however; the focus should be on areas that affect the leader’s life directly.

Leaders have the role of ensuring that activities are well thought and coordinated; however different situations calls for different approaches, the approaches may be new to the business world so leaders should be trained on how to make decision that fit current business environment.

When making strategic decisions, managers are faced with the task of equating the available resources for the good of the company. The best approach keeps changing so managers need to be training on them. In the changes taking place in the world, managers need not only to get (Gibson, 2008).

Leadership is an art of managing and developing strategies to be followed in an organization: it thus can be crafted, developed and natured. Ones level of leadership is not the maximum that he can attain; it can be developed further. the success of an organization depends on the quality of leaders; managerial decisions are the driving force of an organization.

It is worth noting that the decisions are not effective unless other people within the organizations support them; in line with training and developing leaders, their subordinates should also be considered for the similar programs.

The effectiveness of a leader can be seen on the support that he gets form the team he is managing, if the team is well informed, then they can help in making more responsive decision at the same time sharpening the skills of their leader (Tovey and Lawlor, 2004).

Innovations, inventions and Strategist

To be an effective leader and stand out among others, there is need for managers to be innovative, inventive and be strategist; what make a business stand out is what it offers extra than its competitor or which of its processes are better to the competitor.

Innovation and invention is in both products and processes; every company requires strategies to face its competitions, leaders need to make timely and effective strategies to focus the company. In modern business world, strategic alliance may not be avoided, however before the company settles for an alliance, the company to venture with should be well vetted.

Innovations in a leader should be monitored, grown, and developed using policies in the company; it also requires some personal inputs like wide research, individual improvement and experimentation. Employees have been recognized as people who have nurture the talent and grow the ideas of their manager to come up with the innovative ways and invent other ways of doing business (Rath and Conchie, 2008).

Leaders have the role of shaping and guiding an organization to its path to success; to grow effective leaders and keep improving their skills, an organization need to have a well-structured organization that offers an environment of support to junior managers.

The structure of well-organized organization has leadership at different levels, from the chief executive officer who can be seen as the entire organizational leader to micro teams leaders (Kotter, 2001). The differences in levels should have different areas to practice their authority and power; when they are doing so, those in the higher office should offer support.

At all these levels, leaders need to make decisions that are responsive to the situation that the organization is going through. Their decisions must be timely and effective. Other than making business decisions, leaders have the task of managing their team members to the attainment of the set team goals and objectives.

The attainment of team goals leads to the attainment of organizational goals and objectives; leadership is imperative for making a group into an orchestrate team. At whichever the level, the managers should be given some authority that enhances the use of their intellectualism and problem solving powers (Neck, 2006).

There is no one single time that it can be augured that a manager’s potential has been fully exploited; always something extra that can be developed, at different levels of management, there should be policies of mentorship by the top manager or the higher office leader.

One of the major roles of a manager is to mentor and develop human resources in his organization; they need to understand the potential that their company has and devise mechanisms to develop and tap intellectualism in the human resources.

However, leaders also need to be mentored for an effective development, when they are mentoring, they get a chance to learn other skills and get different experiences that improve their management skills (Kim and Mauborgne, 2005).

Using of virtual teams, lean games, current media and scholarly articles

Current development of computers has facilitated the growth of virtual teams, which operate within space, time and geographical areas; they are composed of experts in a certain field who are willing to discuss various issues facing their organization over the internet.

When they are doing so, they are offering the situation to the people for a global solution; when leader involves in such discussions, he gets ideas and learns what other countries are facing situations. The experts offer informed and up-to date information that helps in self-development.

For example in the current business difficulties from global financial crisis, a topic may be floated over virtual teams that seek to expound on how companies are making policies in different countries to ensure they survive the wave of financial crisis.

In such a situation, the leader gets a chance to get information on what is happening on the ground of other companies. Sharing also improves someone’s capability, at the end of secession in the team; the manager’s skills will have been improved.

Leans games are hypothetical situations made to trigger people’s management skills; they may be targeted at training a certain issue that will help managers see things differently; they are mostly conducted as outdoor games. For example, an outdoor game when ten people are asked to make a circle at similar intervals say one metro apart, then a tennis balls is to be rotated along the group passing from one member to another.

The game should be left to continue until there is someone who fails to hold the ball making it drop. At the point of dropping, the members discuss what has made the ball drop, what had made it continue rotating for the long it rotated among others, the answers given offer leaders a chance to understand what happens on the ground in processes; this will assist them make better decisions and understand situations better.

In modern technology world, there are a number of materials aired or written on certain issues of management; they may be written from experience, or they may be scholars in the field. Listening and read in such materials that offer current business information will be of benefit to the leader and enhance the growth of his management skill.

Information is power; when the leader learns from different sources, he gets the chance of growing what he knows and making his skills better (Goleman, Richard and Annie, 2002).

Involvement of team members in decision-making

An efficient leader should involve his team in decision-making. Leaders have the role of implementing strategies, entrepreneurial and mandated with the role of creating a winning team; they are able to motivate and grow the team through involving them in making business decisions.

When they involve their juniors, they get a chance to learn more from the experience, intellectualism, profession and knowledge of their subordinates. When in the process of making decisions, they learn the potential of their staffs, are able to make strategic alignments in the future to enhance, and improved business.

Different situations and organization calls for different leadership styles, thus management should ensure that they understand the kind of style that can be implemented in their organization. When team members are involved in decision-making, they get a chance to learn from each other as well as from the leadership (Jakupec, V. and Garrick, 2002).

Emotional intelligent Leadership

Human character is composed of inborn and socialization traits; the emotional strength of leaders is important for their effectiveness. Emotional intelligence refers to competencies that are derived from neural circuitry which emanate from limbic system; it is an inborn trait that cannot be increased but needs to be exploited.

According to literature studies, most effective leaders have been found to posse’s intelligent competencies that include self-awareness and self-management; to be effective, managers need to start by self-organization and self-leadership. Roadway stated that organization continues to develop leader, but they should focus in not only developing leaders at senior level but at every level in an organization.

The emotional strength of a leader is better growing, tapped and put into use when he is given challenges to undertake. For example, leaders have the role of organizing available resources; organizing is structuring of function in an organization to ensure that goals in the organization have been attain effectively, leaders should be given a full project and mandated with the role of organizing how it will go.

When such an approach is implemented, the leader gets a chance to improve his emotional strength. Functions must be planned in a way that there is high in production; to plan and organize them the manager will have to involve other people, thus the interaction and different ideas grows the leader. One managerial role/function, which cuts across the above functions of management, is human resource management.

To have effective management managers should lead by example (leading function), they must plan the level of expertise, and number of employees in an organization. Human resources fetched should be organized and controlled for efficiency in the company (Stewart and Watson, 2001).

Exposure to challenges, Delegation and Empowerment

Leaders are there to face challenges and offer a solution to them; when someone is not facing challenges, the potential that he has cannot be exploited. To make a manager better, there is need to expose him to challenges that are supported by people in charge.

However, the challenge that leaders has been exposed to should be regulated to ensure that it does not break the leader; they should also get the support they require to perform in the areas they have been assigned (Smith, 2002).

When facing the challenges they should be given chance to use their intellectualism and not spoon-fed about the solution. The increased responsibility is likely to sharpen their management skills.

In-group management, companies that aim at improving their juniors’ leadership skills adopt the spirit of delegation, delegation can be redefined as a strategic approach of diving role and empowering subordinates to do certain tasks that were done by those higher in the authority.

The delegation is a form of offering the subordinates much roles and responsibility with the main aim of growing their talents and leadership skills.

Within teams, team leaders need to develop the talents, skills and grow the leadership skills within the group, the most effective way of growing team members is through strategic delegations. When members are given a major role to play, they feel appreciated and they get motivated, it also grows the spirit of teamwork (Gibson, 2008).

When it comes to empowerments, it follows the same approach with delegation however, empowerment is more concerned about making decisions which the team member could not have made initially; note than in delegation, the team leader is still responsible of the outcome of the delegated role since he has offered directions to be followed.

In empowerment, the staff empowered is given the full control of a project and is held accountable of the outcomes (Schilling and Kluge, 2009).

When empowering and delegation, it is important to consider some aspects, nature of work delegated the level of criticality of the work, the experience, the attitude and behavior as well as the reliability of subordinate. Delegation calls for the mentorship character of the leader to come out and take control, the results from a delegation and an empowerment exercise should be measurable.

When a team has an effective delegation, mentorship and empowerment strategy, the behavior that the team adopts include good communication within the group, high cohesion and positive attitude within the group as well as having a group spirit. Delegation and empowerments are leadership motivational approaches that lead to a team with positive behavior towards the success of the team.

Scholars have quoted teams to be the areas that leaders’ power and potential has been established and grown; they should be made to improve the level of exposure that members have and give them a chance to take an increased responsibilities and roles (Meinolf, Ariane, John and Ikujiro, 2003).

Nurturing

Leaders need to be nurtured and grown. The decisions made by leaders determine the success of an organization; they have the role of mentoring and creating a learning environment to enhance the performance of their teams and development of leaders within their organization. When managers are creating the favorable leadership development programs, they are on their side improving their own skills.

The main difference between a leader and a manager is that leaders lead people while managers manage tasks; with this role, leaders must develop appropriate mechanisms of enhancing learning and staff participation in an organization. To have an environment favorable for learning, leaders must create a positive organizational culture that rewards success and efforts of an employee.

When employees have invented or innovated something, the management should recognize them; this will motivate them learn more and innovate others. Within teams, it is area that employees learn a lot amongst and from each other, leaders have the role of developing an orchestrate team that embraces team spirit.

This will enhance knowledge and experience sharing that leads to learning of new traits and tactics by employees. The leader should be delegating duties and power effectively to create an urge in his team members to learn and improve their skills (Hornsby and Warkeoczeski, 2000).

Conclusion and recommendations

Leaders need to improve continuously their leadership skills as they grow their subordinate’s management/leadership skills. To improve one’s skills, leaders should read current management materials in the media, periodicals and scholarly books.

Exposure to challenges via well-managed delegation, assignments, involvement in decision-making and controlled empowerment grows leaders’ skills and nurtures talents among subordinates.

Organizations top management has the task of developing policies that enhance the growth of a favorable learning environment in their organizations; on the other hand, employees should be guided on how they can improve their own skills at personal level.

References

Ashkanasy, M., 2011. Leadership. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33(3),pp. 1099-1379.

DeSimone, R., Werner, J. M. and Harris, D. M. ,2002. Human resource development. Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers.

Gibson, s. (2008). Developing practical management wisdom. Journal of Management Development, 27(5), pp. 528-536.

Goleman, D., Richard, B. and Annie, M.,2002. The emotional reality of teams. Journal of Organizational Excellence, 21(2), pp. 55-65.

Hornsby, T. and Warkeoczeski, L. 2000. New roles for leaders: A step-by-step guide to competitive advantage. Franklin: Hillsboro Press.

Meinolf, D., Ariane, A., John, C. and Ikujiro, N.,2003. Handbook of Organisational Learning and Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jakupec, V. and Garrick, J. ,2002. Flexible learning, human resource and organisational development:: Putting theory to work. London: Routledge.

Kim, C. W. and Mauborgne, R., 2005. Blue Ocean Strategy. Boston: Harvard Business Press.

Kotter, P. ,2001. What Leaders Really Do. BREAKTHROUGH LEADERSHIP, PP. 85-96.

Mastrangelo, A. , 2004. The importance of personal and professional leadership. The Leadership & Organization. Development Journal, 25(5), pp. 435-451.

Neck, P. ,2006. Two decades of self-leadership theory and research Past developments, present trends, and future possibilities. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21(4), pp. 270-295.

Quinn, R., Faerman, S., Thompson, M., McGrath, M., St Clair, L., 2011. Becoming a Master Manager. New jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

Rath, T. and Conchie, B., 2008. Strengths Based Leadership. New York: Gallup Press.

Schilling, J. and Kluge, A.,2009. Barriers to organizational learning: An integration of theory and research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 11(3), pp. 337–360

Smith, A.,2002. Training and development in Australia (2nd ed.). Sydney: Butterworths.

Stewart, J. and Watson, S. ,2001. Understanding human resource development: A research-based approach. London, New York: Routledge.

Tovey, M. and Lawlor, D.,2004. Training in Australia: Design, delivery, evaluation, management. Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Education, Prentice-Hall.

Xiao-Ping, C., 2011. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 115 (1), pp. 1-144.

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