Principles of Good Leadership

Everybody can become a (leader) boss, but no anyone can become a (good) leader.

Why? Because a leader should fulfill a serie of skills and requirements which are not very eassy to deal with and which cannot be confronted by anyone.

Here you can find some examples about the leader aptitudes:

1. Realize that management succeeds via the efforts of the workers. Although the lead is who guides his team to achieve the goals, they are the ones who do the actual work.

2. Delegate responsibility and then trust your people. Once the lead's trained someone to handle a task, the lead (boss) should allow him or her to handle it without interference. Different people have different ways of doing something. If the lead forces the way on anyone, the boss is undercutting their confidence and does not allow them to exercise their own style. The work of the boss is to provide an honest evaluation to the method, and if he/she find it works just as well, even if it's different from his/her, let it be.

3. Know the employees to know leader's strength. Leader should watch her/his staff and get to know them as individuals. That allows leader to enhance, adjust and align employee's motives with leader's goals.

4. Empower the staff to make critical decisions, and don't second-guess them. Leader must believe the workers are doing their best to act in leader (and/or company) best interest.

5. Help the team learn to work out issues without leader intervention.

6. Deal with any problems quickly and directly.

7. Tell the staff how much they are appreciated - in front of customers if possible. When the staff feel valued and appreciated, their job means more to them than simply a paycheck. This becomes a win-win(-win).

8. Show leader appreciation by doing things for them. Eg. having a lunch all together.

9. Share leader goals with the employees. Tell them what makes leader happy and ask employees directly to help leader reach his/her goals.

10. Learn to be an effective listener. The employees deserve to be heard when they have concerns.

11. Be the boss. No matter how well the staff is trained or how good the leadership skills become, there will be times when leader will have to remind someone that he/she's the final word on all matters.