Explaining the exact components of good leadership skill is practically not possible. There are a lot of building blocks in the making of a good leader. Although yes, it is necessary for the person to have some basic traits in him or her naturally. There are born leaders and there are those who learn to be a good leader with experience and some tutorials. Most of the organisations take up the approach of establishing teams of likeminded and similarly skilled people for their problem solving. To head the teams, they require able leaders to conduct the flow of work.
Leadership is not always about leading a team of 2 or more people, it is also attributed to leading an organisation as a whole. Larger the responsibility, greater is the role played by a team leader or manager. Motivation is the key to be a good leader.
The primary job of a leader is to make people in the team work, not because it is an obligation, but because they would like the work assigned to them. As simple as it may seem, there are various other layers attached to this job, which can be understood if we dig deeper in the attributes that define a good leader.
Creating an inspirational vision- to figure out a final goal and to motivate your team towards achieving it, a leader must create a vision for the team. One of the key skills of the leader is to analyse the current market conditions and then predict a future sequence of action and convince the team to work towards it. A good leader makes a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Constrained) decision in terms of goals.
Motivating the team- creating the vision is not enough. Being a leader, it becomes your responsibility to motivate your team to fulfil the task. At no point of time, you must let the team feel weary of the assignment if you know that it will have long term implications on the progress of the organisation.
Planning and briefing the team- before you ask your team to begin with the work towards the desired goal, you must plan for any and every alternative that may be required. An able leader will take into consideration every suggestion for the betterment of the project.
Another part of good planning is a clear briefing of the assignment that should be given to the team. The manager must be sure of the consequences of the work to get the best efforts from the team members.
Responsibility of the team- the team is the collective responsibility of the manager. For any achievement or any failure, the first person accountable is the manager. Likewise, he or she is also responsible for the successful completion of the goal that has been set for the team.
Evaluating the team- a good leader must know how to judge the abilities of their fellow team members. Another attribute of good leadership is knowing when and how to evaluate the performance of the team as a whole and of an individual separately and make efforts for any improvements that are required.
Being an example- the team members look up to the manager in every aspect. It is crucial for the leader to work carefully with expertise to set an example for the fellow team members to help them work smarter and better.
