3 Tips For Leadership Improvement

With the first half of the New Year comes the opportunity to set New Year’s resolutions, new goals for self-improvement.  As a leader within your organization (current or future), you can improve your leadership skills and make an even greater impact on the organization’s bottom line as we move forward into the year by taking note of some of the elements discussed below:

Within most organizations there is a management/leadership track – take advantage of this track by further refining and developing the leadership and management skills you already possess.

1. Improve your Peer-Leadership Skills
 Build a reputation as a leader among your peers.  Actions speak louder than words.  At various meetings, listen and speak only when you have something important to say that will help the group to move forward.  Do not focus on negative issues.  Identifying problems is one of the easiest things to do; there is no great demand for problem identifiers, but there is a great demand for problem solvers.  Be Solution Oriented:  if you address a problem, be sure that you have a potential solution to discuss as well.  Share information and communicate often with your peers.  This helps you and others to grow and develop.

2. Improve your Administrative Skills
Develop an administrative competence in every form of communication and logistical follow up you perform in your job.  Cultivate a reputation as someone who produces high-quality work no matter what your endeavor, no matter who your audience.

3. Develop your General Leadership Skills
Leadership is a learned skill.  Constantly seek to learn from those successful leaders within and outside your organization.  What pearl or pearls of wisdom can you pick up and use to help you become a leader?  Pick and choose from their leadership styles, yet make it your own as you continue to develop your personal style.  Whatever style you choose, keep these “pearls of wisdom” in the forefront of your mind and think about how to apply them as you move forward in two key areas – achieving bottom line results for your organization and developing your people.

Here are some key ideas to consider as you move along this path of continuous leadership improvement during the first half of the New Year:

• Know yourself and seek self-improvement opportunities

• Be technically proficient and know how to apply your knowledge

• Seek out responsibility and take responsibility for your actions

• Make sound and timely decisions

• Set a good example for others

• Know your people and look out for their wellbeing

• Keep your people well informed

• Help your people develop a sense of responsibility

• Ensure that task job tasks you delegate are understood, supervised, and accomplished

• Train your people as a team

• Develop plans of action that are in accordance with your team’s capabilities