By Shari Simon, Date: 29th June, 2021
Congratulations, you have been promoted to a senior capacity at a high-performing firm and have more responsibilities to complete and tasks to get done at the end of the day. In this moment, the cliché, “good things come to those who wait and are prepared” become so apparent, you have uncertainties about this new role and start questioning your leadership quality and style.
Fortunately, there is no ideal management style that yields a perfect result. Exceptional leaders are not made in a day but they do grow to develop distinct individual traits as well as to share several different qualities. As a leader, the hallmark for accelerating productivity and performance levels across teams involves recognizing your core strengths, identifying blind spots and learning to invest in maximizing your key qualities to achieve performance results.
For effect management of projects, teams and other value-adding activities, there is no ‘winging it.’ The first step is to communicate with your team what needs to get done and outline in detail how this will be done. Anyone who has encountered a leader in academia, the workplace or any interpersonal setting can attest that communication is a mastered skill, and a leader is often unafraid to have candid discussions or honest and frank interactions with others. Because managing teams, regardless of size, involves rigorous planning, delegating, strategizing and goal setting, it is critical to communicate clearly and understandably to achieve goals and meet set targets for real and sustained profit results.
It is also important to work on developing the competence and capacity to lead effectively. This includes recognizing the need to evolve alongside companywide competencies, and consistently seek to improve expertise for efficient performance and productivity. Doing this will support building motivated and high-performing teams because you are knowledgeable of understanding what tools and techniques are needed to nurture and build the performance and expertise levels of these teams. Getting the task completed is one aspect, having the competence to ensure the task is completed accurately and timely is another. Many leaders in senior capacities are perceived as specialists in their respective fields, and a certain quality of output is always expected. Despite having less in-depth knowledge about area specialties, competence is critical to driving overall success and it takes persistence and a determined mindset to see limitations as opportunities for solutions and growth.
Conversely, being the go-to person on a daily basis can be daunting. But it is rewarding to find resourceful ways to develop a resilient spirit that can withstand different behaviors and personalities. This helps balance emotions (how you feel) and objective reasoning (what is correct) in many situations, and allows for in-depth rationalizing of situations that impact the bottom-line of the business. The quality of leadership and level of judgment exhorted while leading high-performing teams especially in times of workplace conflict, requires leaders to exercise conscious thinking or thinking that foresees a benefit or constructive outcome for everyone involved, including the business.
As you grow, invest and continuously learn new ways to create value across different teams, effective and efficient leadership requires that you constantly reflect on your personal motive, what you envision to achieve and how your perspective of leadership drives the potential of your entire team.
