You’ve heard it said before that a boss must lead from the front. But as the world continues evolving technologically, and the roles and responsibilities of leadership change, maintaining excellence in the company workforce requires a leader to find ways to encourage empowerment amongst your staff.
This means aspiring leadership professionals must develop soft skills for workplace success. Being a model for effective communication skills, emotional intelligence, decision-making, and ethical practice is the new mission for organisations to maintain company accomplishments in the modern world.
1. Effective Communication
Effective communication goes beyond a simple exchange of information. Emotion and intent need to be involved and clear for communication to be successful.
Effective communication therefore includes active listening. It’s two-way and builds trust and confidence amongst employees that their managers value their input.
As a leader in the workplace, managing employees is part of the job. Team performance often relies on employee engagement; everyone feels their ideas are respected and contributions are heard.
When a communication breakdown occurs, it’s your job as a leader to recognise it, and have open discussions with your team to identify how to improve your communication approach and ensure clarity in future conversations.
Lead by example: greet your colleagues in the morning, have an open, curious mind about diverse cultural backgrounds within your team, listen with genuine empathy and consider the best communication channel for the job. Some things can be shared by email, but often, the best teamwork occurs face-to-face.
Cultivating a work environment will see improvement in your negotiation ability too when landing deals with future clients. Indeed, effective communication is a valuable and transferable skill to exercise throughout all facets of life.
2. Empathy and Emotional Intelligence
Often overlooked as a performance indicator, empathetic leadership is the ability to understand the needs of others. Having an awareness of your employees’ feelings, thoughts, strengths and weaknesses, and having the ability to work with various teams, departments, ethnicities, perspectives and backgrounds is something that is becoming increasingly necessary in senior management.
It’s important to note there is a difference between sympathy and empathy. The former encompasses great feelings of pity for another person, without truly understanding their experience. The latter is more about having the capacity to put yourself in someone else’s situation.
Here are some practical tips any leader can use to enhance their emotional intelligence, whilst maintaining company culture.
- Keep an eye on burnout in others. A good manager would recognise when someone is overworked before a deadline or organisational pressure occurs.
- Show sincere interest in the needs, hopes, and dreams of other people. Ensure work delegation assignments to suit employee satisfaction and skill set.
- Show a willingness to help an employee with personal problems. As workplace boundaries blur, it’s expected that your leadership style takes into account when a team member is struggling in their personal life.
3. Decision-Making Capabilities
As a leader, your choices significantly impact your business’s outcomes and day-to-day running. A great leader can make strategic decisions and use critical thinking skills to consider all the consequences for the company.
Commitment to developing problem-solving abilities requires the ability to manage emotions, take feedback and encourage input from other team members to improve the effectiveness of your projects.
Delegation is a key skill for any leader. Not only do you provide opportunities for your team members to increase productivity and improve workplace culture, but you also leave yourself with more time to focus on critical tasks.
Developing the ability to take calculated risks is another strategy for efficient decision-making. Sometimes, company growth stems from innovation and risk mitigation, whilst utilising your insight into the organisation’s goals and objectives.
4. Integrity and Ethics
Leaders are representatives of the company policies. They are required to uphold company values and utilise their time and resources. In the same vein, employees want authenticity and honesty from their employers.
Consistency, humility and accountability are the key to cultivating integrity. Being true to your word and owning up to your mistakes, rather than making excuses, denying them or worse, blaming your team, will earn the respect of your staff. Holding yourself to a higher moral standard will mentally put you in the position to consider how your words and actions will impact your, your team’s and the company’s reputation.
5. Adaptability and Flexibility
We’ve all become acquainted with flexible work arrangements in recent years. The increase in remote work since the COVID-19 pandemic was considered a long time coming as technology has allowed the workplace to enter our homes.
As a leader, it’s important to recognise how individual routines may differ with time zones and personal commitments if your team has members who work remotely. Encourage your team to maintain clear schedules and communicate with you to enhance productivity and organisation. Team leaders should understand that people work and think differently.
Similarly, a positive emphasis on your and your staff’s soft skills is equally necessary to balance the prevalence of digital skills. A clear sense of prioritisation, time management skills, empathy and resilience throughout times of tension within your team will discourage failures. The pandemic has proven that companies can remain productive, through online collaboration and adapting to different approaches to work.
Become a better leader today!
Practice makes perfect. Implementing qualities like effective communication and problem-solving skills, empathy and flexibility in the workplace takes time. Consider Priority Management’s quality training programs to enhance the development of your soft skills.
Priority Management has been at the forefront of professional development for over 40 years. We have worked with some of the world’s largest companies on effective leadership, project management, time management, negotiation and communication skills.
Learn how to foster these leadership qualities in your team. Start leading effectively today!