Leadership can be defined as the ability to identify problems and fashion out the best way to solve them by motivating a group of people in a community or organisation. This group of people may not necessarily be a team. Leadership is influencing others to achieve a goal or set of goals without coercion. Great leaders are developed, not just born, or do not emerge accidentally. This means that the most important leadership quality is empathy – ability to feel like others. Influential skill of leaders develops from empathy. The most crucial issue in leadership studies is in understanding the skills that enable leaders to thrive in any situation. While some leaders have Midas touch, there are figure-head leaders who cannot influence their followers. A leader is a person who is constantly evolving and embraces meaningful input from others. Human resources experts have been able to identify the essential qualities of effective leaders within a team to unlock their organisation’s full potential.
Of late, great leaders are exhibiting a new quality essential to be great. This quality is what stands out the oldest organisations in the world like Kongo Gumi, a Japanese construction company founded in 578 AD, and the Royal Mint of the United Kingdom founded in 886 AD. Empirical studies have shown that, though it is an added advantage for leaders to have ‘job-knowhow’, it is not essential for effective leaders to have technical expertise (“Can You Be a Great Leader Without Technical Expertise?” Art Markman, Harvard Business Research, November 15, 2017). Leaders who are not technical experts must rely on the expertise of their members (“Leading People When They Know More than You Do”, Wanda T. Wallace and David Creelman, Harvard Business Review, June 18, 2015). Delegating tasks and responsibilities to those with the necessary technical knowledge and skills allows the leader to focus on overall strategy and team management.
These leaders create trust and the ‘feel-good-factor’ in their team members because of their confidence, compassion, clear-directives, integrity and modesty. The soft skills of stellar leaders generally are:
Empathy:- Empathy is generally described as the ability to view from another’s perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience. There are clear and sometimes conflicting definitions of empathy that include but are not limited to social, cognitive, and emotional processes primarily concerned with understanding others. Oftentimes, empathy is considered to be a broad term, and broken down into more specific concepts and categories that include cognitive empathy, emotional (or affective) empathy, somatic empathy, and spiritual empathy. Empathetic leaders are highly attuned to the thoughts and feelings of their employees, and look beyond seeing, listen beyond hearing and are those who listen more than they talk, and delight in praising others when things go right than complain when things go wrong.
Effective communication:- Effective communication is the process of exchanging ideas, thoughts, opinions, knowledge, and data so that the message is received and understood with clarity of purpose. When we communicate effectively, both the sender and receiver feel satisfied. Strong communication skills are essential for delegating tasks, setting goals, and appraising employees (giving constructive feedback).
Problem-solving:- Problem solving is the act of defining a problem; determining the cause of the problem; identifying, prioritising, and selecting alternatives for a solution; and implementing the best solution. Problem solving is the process of achieving a goal by overcoming obstacles. It is a frequent part of most group activities. Problems in need of solutions range from simple personal tasks to complex issues in business like meeting demands for goods and services and technical fields like repairing machineries. Successful leaders are skilful in problem-solving.
Conflict resolution:- Disagreements are bound to occur in any space where there are more than one person. The number of disagreements that may occur in a group is directly related to the number of people in the group and the level of interrelationship. These disagreements often lead to conflicts. The role of conflict resolution is to end a dispute and reach an agreement that satisfies all parties involved. Since conflict is an essential part of human beings, effective conflict resolution is not designed to avoid disagreements but to solve conflicts resulting from disagreements. Effective leaders are good at conflict resolution and do this on a daily basis mainly to avoid friction between their employees and hiccup within the organisation operation.
Humility:- Humility is the quality of being humble. Dictionary definitions accentuate humility as low self-regard and sense of unworthiness. In a religious context, humility can mean humbling of self in relation to a deity (i.e. God), and subsequent submission to that deity as a member of a religion. Outside of a religious context, humility is defined as being “selfless” – liberated from consciousness of self-first form of disposition, that is, neither having pride (or haughtiness) nor indulging in self-depreciation. Successful leaders are “servant-leaders” and not oppressors, and value their team members more in the process of achieving team goals.
While it is important for leaders to be confident and authoritative, this confidence should not be mistaken for knowing-it-all or arrogance. The best leaders have a healthy dose of humility to admit what they do not know and bring in those who do, including from the rank and file of the employees, for the purpose of achieving organisational objectives. They delegate effectively to subordinates and do not feel or act timid. Good leaders see team success as collective achievement and team failure as their personal shortcoming, and take responsibility for it. Leaders have been defined as those who have voluntary and joyful followers behind them.
In the modern era, both as a corporate and political leader, the most important quality of leaders is the ‘ability to identify talents’. Talent identification is the process of discovering an individual’s abilities and potential to excel in a particular field or position. Identifying raw talents is very challenging as some employees do not even know they have talent until they are discovered. Leaders who are considered great are those who can identify talents and nurture these talents for the benefit of the organisation. Microsoft Inc. relies on identifying people with the right critical thinking skills instead of technical skills for its continuous great performance. Great leaders are concerned about the future of their organisations more than its present state. They are visionary leaders who can see what others cannot see. They are calm enough to study their team members and see in these team members beyond what ordinary people cannot see. Talent management is very critical to succession planning strategy.
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