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How to become an effective leader

The skills, knowledge and experience of the leader directly affect the entire team, and therefore the success of the company. The boss must not only demand constant self-improvement from his subordinates, but also improve his own skills and abilities. This is the only way to overcome competition and become a leader in your business niche. So let's talk about how to become a good leader and what do you need to do to achieve this goal?

Content:

1. Qualities of a good and effective leader

2. What type of leader are you

3. First become a leader, then you will be assigned

4. Stress resistance: how to react to stress and how to deal with it?

5. Common mistakes

6. A male-boss or a female-boss — who is better?

Qualities of a good and effective leader

A good boss is a role model. This is a person who you want to follow and who can be trusted to solve the most complex professional tasks. He is responsible for creating a constantly developing team. And without special leadership qualities in this case, you can't do. To become a good chief and manage a company efficiently, the boss must be:

  • open — not stand solely on his own, but be able to listen to the opinions of other members of his team, analyze them judiciously and choose the most worthy opinion;
  • honest — win the trust of subordinates by providing facts and results of work;
  • smart — to offer fresh, unusual ideas, non-standard approaches to solving classic problems;
  • creative — it's important to have not only logical, but also creative thinking;
  • with a good sense of humor — be able to defuse a tense situation, calm down subordinates, stir up the team during the «creative stagnation»;
  • with analytical thinking — in any business, you have to solve problems not entirely, but in small portions, so it's important to correctly divide large blocks into separate segments;
  • confident — in yourself, in your team, in your idea;
  • ready for changes — be able to join a new stream, quickly get used to new orders and changes in your business niche.

And this is not all the qualities of a leader that allow to understand how to become a successful leader, because there are much more of them: courage, determination, humanity, activity, emotional stability, reasonableness, friendliness.

Also, the leader must use innovative technologies to optimally organize the workflow and to control the work of employees. A simple time tracker Checkian will allow the boss or manager to be aware of the productivity of each employee and the hole teams. A tracker of working time and earned money is the invaluable tool for disciplining and motivating in work.

What type of leader are you

The DISC system is a classification of people based on the color typology of personality and staff motivation. It outlines four personality types based on two criteria: logic-emotion and follower-lead. To make it easier to understand each category, they were marked in green, red, blue, and yellow. If you want to become the head of  company, that subordinates want to follow –  you need to study this system and find out who you are:

  • Leaders — control events and manage people. Their reference point is the task. Relationships are being sidelined.
  • Followers – usually responsible only for themselves. They like when other people solve problems. Relationship-oriented, not task-oriented.
  • Logically – analyze, structure, understand. They are guided by logic.
  • Emotionally – put relationships, feelings, and experiences first. Active and impulsive.


After analyzing the behavioral types of people, it's now easier to divide them all by color segments:

  • Red – emotionally-leaders – factor D-dominance.
  • Blue – logically-leaders – factor I-influence.
  • Green – logically-followers – factor S-stability.
  • Yellow – emotionally-followers – factor C-commitment, or compliance.

How exactly will the DISC system help you become an effective leader? Based on these factors, you can learn about the values, characteristics, and features of each type of leader:

  • Red. They are determined, purposeful and adventurous people who like to compete. They say everything directly, are bold in their decisions and communication. They want to be above others, in charge. The most important, urgent and complex cases are put forward as key tasks. In a stressful situation, they become aggressive.
  • Blue. Its values are facts, rules, system, logic. This is a principled, disciplined type of people who always have everything exactly, clearly and accurately. They are polite and diplomatic in conversation. The key tasks are analytical. Under the stress can become reserved and withdraw into own self.
  • Yellow. Value include communication, positive atmosphere, positive attitude, people and ideas. They are charming, charismatic people, open to everything new and to everyone, emotional, positive, creative and friendly. This type always shows enthusiasm, which is why it is often perceived as an impulsive person. In the main tasks makes things that they like the most. Being in a stressful environment, can become intrusive.
  • Green. Value security, stability, and predictability. They are very careful, patient, diligent people who don't like changes and are suspicious of everything and everyone. At the same time, they are calm and courteous in communication. Their priority is structured and consistent tasks. If they find themselves in a stressful situation, they agree with everyone.

Classification of people by managerial types helps you understand how to become the head of an organization by analyzing your subordinates, understanding what advantages they have. This allows you to effectively organize the work by correctly combining different color types.

  • Red works best when paired with Yellow, medium — between each other, even worse — with Green and very bad — with Blue.
  • The Greens cooperate best with each other, slightly worse with the Blues and Yellows, then – with the Reds.
  • Yellows feel great when paired with their color, then with Red, then with Green, but worst of all  – with Blue.
  • Blue compatible with each other, mid — Green and very bad things are going with Yellow and Red.

First become a leader, and then you will be appointed

Before you start your ascent up the career ladder to the position of chief – find out why you need it. What is behind your desire to be in charge? When a subordinate suddenly becomes a leader in a company, everyone wonders why it wasn't him who was in the place of this lucky person. And the fact is that most people try to get to the top of the hierarchical pyramid of the company without understanding what it means to be a boss. But those who did it, promptly realized one banal thing: first you need to become a leader and only after that you will be appointed to this position.

This means that first you need to win the trust of the team, become an authority among them, a person whose opinion is listened to. You need to be the one whom employees will turn for help, who will ask for advice. Not only professional skills, knowledge and experience, but also sincerity, honesty and transparency will help you attract people to your side.

If your goal is to become a leader, then this is already a failure from the very beginning of the path. To get such an important position, you need to first become someone who will lead people without the official authority.

Stress resistance: how to react to stress and how to deal with it?

So, you decided to become a team leader and now, finally, your wish has come true. The team approved you, you won the authority of colleagues and reached the real place of the chief. And there began: a huge number of negotiations, events, overloads, working late at night and on weekends, working even at home when you get there for a short time. If you don't know how to properly cope with stressful situations, you can greatly overload the nervous system.

Stress is useful only in moderate doses, as it motivates you to take action and find solutions of the problem. If let your emotions run wild and full with negativity, fear, worries, nothing good will come of it. How does the boss cope with stressful attacks? Experts recommend a very simple way out of this situation — meditation. It helps to turn off the inner voice, which is the source of negative thoughts.

Meditation is not necessarily a Lotus position, the sounds of nature, or an hour of silence. You can still sit in your work chair, turn on pleasant music and immerse into yourself. And most importantly – don't think about business! You need to abstract as much as possible from your work.

There are other useful and unusual ways to relieve stress, for example:

  • sports – 2-3 times a week will be enough to keep your nerves under control;
  • exercise — it is important to take small breaks at work every day. It's better to choose a pleasant, relaxing place for this. Perhaps near a window with a nice view;
  • rest — every day during the working day, you need to allocate 30 minutes for nothing! You should just sit and listen to music, watch your favorite TV show, or read a book. You need to completely immerse yourself in another world, mentally getting away from the workplace;
  • plan — in order to protect yourself as much as possible from overloads , you need to plan your day and week in advance. Pitfalls will still occur, but it will be much less of them;
  • diary — make it a rule to write down all your thoughts in a professional diary in the evening after finishing work: what worries you, what causes negative thoughts, and what, on the contrary, made you happier. This will help you draw conclusions and eliminate annoying factors.

Common mistakes

Not every boss is a good and effective manager. And the reason for this is a number of serious mistakes that he (she) makes:

1. Shifts his work to subordinates.
2. Does not appreciate the efforts of employees.
3. Does not encourage their achievements and high results.
4. Can't organize the work properly.
5. Appropriates other people's merits.
6. Shows disrespect and rudeness towards subordinates.
7. Doesn't care about them.

And these are just the most common mistakes of unscrupulous bosses. They, having got a high position, relax, believing that there are worker bees that will do all the work.

A man-boss or a woman-boss: who is better?

Today, it's as easy for a woman to become a leader as it is for a man. Each of the applicants, regardless of gender, has its own unique qualities and features. For example, male managers are excellent strategists, while women are excellent tacticians. Although it's more difficult for representatives of the beautiful half of humanity to gain the authority of employees than for the stronger sex. Especially if the team is in the vast majority of men.

Women are more attentive to their employees than men. But the latter are considered much more stress-resistant than business women.

So it is difficult to say exactly who will be the most effective leader. Everything will depend more on the character of the person and its attitude to the work and subordinates.













See also:

Why time tracking will be useful for you

Top 10 factors that affect productivity

OKR for company development

Procrastination! What’s that in simple terms?