How to improve your leadership style
Leadership style is a major factor in the success of a business. Here are tips on combatting ineffective leadership.
As we approach the end of the year, our team here at Northern Primrose has been reflecting on the wins, the hurdles and growth areas for clients, including what makes a good leader.
Here’s a secret that some businesses don’t know: the executive assistant is a valuable resource in understanding the health of a company’s leadership. Not only do they have direct and frequent interactions with management and key stakeholders, but they also are the first to have ears on when things go wrong and frustrations happen. You can be sure they’re noticing any communication barriers when they are recording the meeting minutes, or when a team member is feeling confused about the lack of clear goals.
Why does business leadership matter?
Leadership is the largest contributing factor of how smoothly a business runs. Ineffective or mismatched leadership can lead to a loss of respect, engagement, productivity, and the inability to build a high-performing team.
If your team has difficulty achieving goals, delivers unfavourable results or seem unmotivated, your business’s leadership style may be worth evaluating.
Here are a few tips to help improve your company’s leadership style.
Understand your leadership style (and your team’s leadership styles)
There are numerous books and articles about leadership styles so we won’t attempt to summarize it all here – but this article gives a basic summary of some of the common leadership styles (transformational, laissez-faire, participatory, transactional, and autocratic) and their pros and cons. Beyond these five styles, consideration should also be made for evaluating if a leader is people-oriented, process-oriented, thought-oriented, or impact-oriented.
Still with us? Here’s the point: The purpose of understanding your leadership style, and your team’s leadership styles, is to become aware of any weaknesses and come up with strategies to mitigate them. The questions to ask are: Do they have the specific leadership skills required for their role? If not, can your leadership team help balance each other out?
For example, if a team leader is highly process-oriented, but they are in a role that also requires relationship-building and they are lacking in that area, then they may need extra training – or the tasks of relationship building may be better passed on to someone else who does have those skills.
Lean on others for feedback
Similar to how you might send out a customer feedback survey to see where improvements need to be made, it’s essential for management to receive feedback, too. This is a common practice for some larger organizations where employees rate the performance of management. It’s a guaranteed way to find out what needs attention.
Small businesses may have a less formal practice and an “open door policy,” which can work well so long as there’s still initiative for feedback, documentation and steps towards change.
It may also be helpful to get the perspective of your virtual executive assistant as they tend to be the eyes and ears of operations. We are not suggesting they should start to run espionage – trust and transparency are the cornerstones of a healthy workplace! But they may have valuable feedback if asked where things could be improved.
Try to put your ego aside
Change starts at the top. For business leaders to inspire and motivate their team, they need to become aware of how they lead and how to improve.
But sometimes it can be difficult to see outside ourselves and be honest with our shortcomings. It takes a strong character to be able to take criticism and admit where there might need to be growth. Accepting feedback and criticism well is a necessary skill in leadership and business success. “Ego is the enemy of good leadership,” as one Harvard Business Review article puts it. They write: “an inflated ego prevents us from learning from our mistakes and creates a defensive wall that makes it difficult to appreciate the rich lessons we glean from failure.”
The best way to put your ego aside is to be curious and allow yourself to learn. To do this, you may need to focus on the big picture and the purpose of receiving feedback – which is for the success of the business. Finally, try not to take it personally. What successful leaders have in common is their willingness to listen, learn and strive for better.
Think you may need an evaluation of the efficiency of your business operations? Get in touch.
