I believe that true leadership is defined as the ability to successfully integrate the individual talents of various individuals into a cohesive team that can work together towards a goal that has been set by the leader. As such, being an effective leader involves developing the capacity to look at the positive traits of employees that are working for you rather than be prejudiced. Good personal leadership requires a leader to be impartial, results oriented as well as making do with what you have at the present.
To be an effective leader is to be a positive human being in terms of how you view your employees and what they are capable of doing. It is based on this definition that when it come to the type of leader that I want to become, I decided that the best route for me would be to lead by developing good relationships with my employees while at the same time creating a task oriented system that enables the people that are working under me to have a clear goal in mind when it comes to the activities that they are doing.
Since I am focused more on developing good relationships with my employees, the following are the types of leadership strategies that I will implement:
- Enabling a person to make necessary instead of emotional choices – under this strategy I will focus on developing the self respect and sense of achievement of my employees. This can be accomplished by encouraging them to work more effectively and with more zeal by complimenting them on their current accomplishments, supporting them with advice and helping them develop a certain level of independence. By doing so, I expect that my employees will become far more adept at individual decision making which should take the pressure off me as a leader.
- Giving the means to understand and empathize with employees in order to understand their strengths and limitations – it is necessary to support employees through understanding and empathy rather than trying to force them into becoming something that they are not. Under this leadership strategy, I will focus on directing them by understanding how they think, empathizing with their current situation and devising methods that would result in effective work outcomes.
- Creating an effective work environment by reducing the causes of conflict and mitigating problems before they come about – one of the main problems when it comes to work outputs is the work environment that employees find themselves in. A less secure work environment in terms of support, assistance and guidance from a leader can often lead to employees developing a distinctly negative mindset regarding their job and the person they work for. It is based on this that I will endeavor to ensure that employees feel secure and safe wherein they will understand that they can come to me if they encounter any issues that they are unable to resolve on their own.
- Creating an achievement oriented mindset – it is important to note that a leader should be achievement oriented in that they should set goals for both themselves and their employees. It is based on this that knowing possible outcomes and determining how particular goals can be met is an essential component for any leadership strategy since goals and achievements are a necessary component when it comes to creating better operational outcomes.