Despite the popular rhetoric that everyone can be the head of a company, good leadership skills need to be developed.
While it takes time, experience, and (at the very least) a lot of googling, there are two things that I rarely see in leadership tips articles that are instrumental in leading any team.
Two Simple Leadership Tips
These tips for leaders need to happen in this order:
1 – choose your team carefully.
2 – trust your team.
Leadership Tip #1 – Choose Your Team Carefully.
When you’re choosing a team, or finding the right person to hire, make sure that you give real thought to who you want as a teammate. This includes the actual role they will fill in the business along with the traits you want that person to exemplify. When you define the role properly, it will be much easier to hire the right people.
After defining the role you’re hiring for, don’t make a knee-jerk hire. Meet with a few people, check out the role again and make sure it is properly defined. THEN invest in the person that you most resonate with for the role.
#2 – Trust Your Team
Because you did all the work to choose your team, you have to let yourself trust them.
If you’re like me, you want things done a certain way, that is your limit, not your team’s. When you trust your team, you can set a goal and the parameters, but let them do it themselves. Yes, they’ll need guidance, guidance is a leader’s job. Micromanagement is not.
You bring people into your business to give you more time to work on the things that matter. Not to watch over them and make sure they’re doing everything the way you want it to.
Just the Start
If you’re stepping into a new leadership role, these two tips will get you pretty far. But as I said earlier, there’s a lot more to it. You’ve got to be decisive, stay calm, and know when to listen instead of speak – and when to speak instead of listening. You have to stay positive while being realistic and you always have to keep the big vision in mind.
