Every business needs a leader.
Every project needs a leader.
Every conversation needs a leader.
The ability to choose comes with the necessity to lead. You are the leader in your own life. The question is not if you lead, but how well you lead.
In a competitive business environment, effective leadership is an essential requirement in order to achieve organizational goals. To do this, leaders must be able to provide inspiration, motivation and clear direction to their team.
For any type or size of business, effective leadership provides many benefits, and will assist the organization to achieve success and stability. In the absence of effective leadership, organizations often grow slowly and may lose their direction and competitiveness.
Some of the ways in which leadership can benefit a business include:
- A clear vision
Setting a clear future direction or vision and communicating it effectively provides employees with an understanding of the organizational direction and allows them to clearly understand their roles and responsibilities. - Effective planning
A structured approach generates a plan of action that will most effectively meet the organizational goals. An inclusive planning process also provides the opportunity for people to identify, contribute to, understand and achieve well-defined objectives. - Inspiration and motivation
The commitment and enthusiasm of a business leader shapes the common goals of the organization and provides inspiration and motivation for people to perform at a high level. - New ideas
Encouragement of people to openly contribute and discuss new ideas in a positive environment makes use of their diverse experience and ideas to improve a business. - Employee relations
An open and engaging relationship between a leader and team members demonstrates that they are valued as an integral part of the organization, creating a sense of ownership among team members and developing a closer alignment between individual and team objectives.
Becoming an effective leader is not about becoming a master of all leadership skills, rather it is about recognizing your strengths and weaknesses and then finding ways to nurture the former and overcome the latter.
The real question is: “Can leadership be learned?”
And the answer to this question is a definite, clear “Yes”.
The general perception is that leadership is a blend of special, mysterious qualities. We tend to take for granted that either you are born with this elusive “right stuff” or not. This is a myth; there is nothing mysterious about most of the ingredients that go into the leadership cocktail. And rest assured most of these essential elements lie within your reach.
The Leadership Cocktail
Some leadership skills and behaviors are present in you already. You just have to learn to tap into them fully.
Some of them may be foreign to you now, but with perseverance and application, you can learn to cultivate them.
The following checklist will give you an idea of the skills necessary to be an effective leader. Many of them you will have already, some of them you may want to focus on.
Leadership Is A Decision, Not A Position
The desire to lead is the most necessary pre-condition to becoming a leader
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Maggie Sayers is a professional development coach and a Master Optician. Her optical career started over 30 years ago in a family business in Germany.
Since she came to Florida in 1987, she has worked diligently to promote high professional standards in opticianry. Her mission is to help opticians achieve their personal success through serving the public as vision experts.
As a professional development coach Maggie provides education workshops that focus on leadership and personal engagement. Her time management course has inspired many participants to think outside the box, apply newly acquired knowledge and achieve extraordinary results.
Maggie's enthusiasm for opticianry is inspiring and her keen business sense paired with excellent communication skills make her a highly sought after motivational speaker.
