Uncertain times require good leaders

If 2020 has taught us anything, it is the uncertainty of how life will look tomorrow. When faced with ambiguous outcomes, your team will be looking for a reliable leader. Now is the time to be honing your skills, practicing good leadership, and improving your processes. Here are some key fundamentals of leadership:

Metrics

No one gifted any of us with the supreme knowledge of leadership. Like most things in life, it is a constant feedback loop of learning, testing, and analyzing. The only way you can examine if you are effective or not is with quality data. Setting benchmarks, goals and watching your team's performance will enable you to make small tweaks to look for improvement. 

Confidence

Humans have an uncanny ability to detect weakness. Especially in uncertain times, your team is looking for someone confident in what they are doing. Having a quality history of metrics will help you be certain that you are making the best-informed decisions you can.

Communication

Communication is a two-way street. If you want to be an effective leader, you must first learn to listen. Second is the mastery of conveying the intent of your message. Ultimately, leaders need efficient, effective communication with their teams to align them with their vision, metrics, goals, and expectations. A great place to start is with a weekly one on one with team members. It is a great time to learn about them, show you care, communicate with them, and help them grow.

Share the wins

It can be tempting for new leaders to take all of the credit when their team succeeds. Ingrained in your teammates is the same drive for appreciation that tempts new leaders. Failing to call out team members who contributed significantly or went above and beyond to help the team win will ultimately kill morale.

Own the mistakes

Passing off the blame is transparent to whoever you are responsible for delivery to and your team. Taking the heat for any mistakes and taking ownership of the problem are traits of effective leaders. Taking ownership of the problem includes acknowledging the error and addressing how you will avoid it in the future. 

Transparency

Your team is smart. Trying to hide anything, especially bad news, from your team, could erode their trust in you. Instead, try to deliver all information as promptly as possible. If it is negative news, try to provide it with a solution - or ask your team to help solve the problem.

Lead by example

As humans, we naturally want to follow people we respect. One way to earn respect and build rapport with others is to lead by example. An example would be requiring everyone to be on time. If you show up on time or even early, your peers will respect that. If you show a double standard, a "do as I say, not as I do" mentality, your teammates will likely have a hard time following you.

Build your team

When solving complex problems, you are only as good as the team. You have to help you. Building your team is probably one of the most challenging but most necessary skills you can develop as a leader. Learning to screen, quantify, find, and sell to your prospective employees is imperative. Full circle back to the start of this article, metrics will be essential. Make sure you are screening and recruiting for specific goals. Measure your new hires across those goals, and make adjustments as you learn and grow.

As we all navigate the uncertainty of 2020 and beyond, remember your team needs an effective leader. These tips are a starting point of fundamentals for leadership to help you develop your skills. 

Rook Advisors solves problems for business owners, solutions delivered by real people, not robots. Solutions that give you peace-of-mind, increased revenue, and, most importantly - more time. Our team can help your organization with leadership coaching, as well as interim executive leadership placement.