The term leader is usually confused with a manager. A manager manages people, resources, and equipment to achieve organizational goal while a leader is a person who can inspire, motivate etc.
“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” —Jack Welch
Who is a leader?
Some people view leadership as a time to exercise all their power, while others believe that good leadership occurs when the organization meets and exceeds its KPIs regardless of the state of their subordinates and employees. Finally, some people view leadership as a position where only their voices matter.
Leaders create your company’s culture and will also be the biggest impact on your employee engagement.
Leaders are teachers who communicate openly with their employees, recognizing that communication goes both ways.
The leaders who will succeed in today’s business landscape are those with the ability to create a culture of innovation, encourage and recognize good ideas, and train employees to grow and solve problems creatively.
Roles of a leader
There are so many roles a leader performs. Some of them include:
Motivator
Provides Vision
Team Player
Decision Maker
Strategist.
How do we redefine the roles of leadership?
From an ethical and principled perspective, we want to redefine leadership from what is seen to be to become more service or value based. When we live in a world with conflicting goals and intentions, this is easier said than done, but the most effective leaders right today have the soft skills to connect and lead with compassion.
Giving a new definition of leadership in your business and outlining the traits you wish to see in a leader in the organization's working environment is redefining leadership responsibilities. Most essential, we need modest leaders who understand that their role is to help and guide people rather than to micromanage them. In the current era of reskilling, a leader will be someone who acts in the service of others, motivating and enabling a group of employees to accomplish things on their own.
Some of the attributes of a service or value-based leadership are:
Leading with empathy – here you have a genuine interest in team members and employees’ lives, the challenges they face, and their feelings overall. Empathy is critical for all aspects of business, from creativity to innovation to retention. Most times leaders find it hard to show empathy as they simply can’t relate since they live in neighbourhoods with people like them, interact with other leaders for fun and their children go to school with other leader’s children. But being more aware could bridge that gap.
Lead by encouraging employees at all levels to think outside the box and come forward with ideas that can move the company forward. You encourage creative thinking and problem solving.
Training – Leaders should add new skill sets and identify with the new and changing nature of their employees. Also train workers at all levels by teaching them new skills.
Mentorship programs within the company that pair senior-level workers with new and entry-level employees. This would go a long in improving their communication.
The factory approach was used to create organizations in the past. Everyone had a profession that was both specialised and teachable. People on the front lines aren't supposed to think; they're supposed to act. Leaders' primary responsibilities were to boost efficiency and reduce expenses. Leaders and managers were in place to keep people in line, but in current economy, that strategy will not work.
Today's corporate environment necessitates innovative and unconventional thinking at all levels, and if workers can move from the old to the new era, their leadership may be redefined and modified to fit the new era as well.
In summary, organisations should constantly develop leadership traits among their employees, as leaders may be found in all levels. When there are leaders, things move smoothly.
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