25 Ways to Improve Your Leadership
By: Max Klein
Tags: Leadership, Employee Engagement, Leadership Development, Business, Work

25 Ways to Improve Your Leadership

Small improvements can yield big results.

Estimates suggest that bad leadership by managers costs the economy close to $24 billion annually as a result of absenteeism and reduced productivity. Let alone the effect it has on morale and employee retention.

Good leadership is critical to employee engagement, retention, and a company’s bottom line.

Bad leadership is a massive problem for businesses, but even a worse problem for the employees who have to suffer through it.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Leadership can be learned. Bad leadership can be patched up with knowledge.

Here are 25 ways you can be a better leader today.

#1. Give genuine praise/appreciation.

This study found that “lack of appreciation” is the number one workplace frustration. 40% of employees said that employee recognition was just not a priority to their leaders. This often limited their desire to truly excel.

So give praise to someone when it is deserved. And always be sincere with it.

#2. Delegate.

Learning to delegate and trust employees is critical to their motivation as well as their formation of initiative. Letting go of control can be tough for hands-on leaders, but it must be done.

#3. Read one thing about leadership daily.

You should be improving your leadership skills daily.

Continuous learning on what makes a good leader is a service to you, your company, and most importantly, to those you lead.

#4. Mind your tact.

How you say things is often just as important as what you say. Are you causing unnecessary offense with your words or demeanor? Self-analysis here is key. Emotional intelligence and awareness must be honed to avoid self-sabotage of your leadership efforts.

#5. Be decisive.

Decisiveness is critical to good leadership. Most indecision is due to fear. A fearful leader is not an inspiring one.

Decide. Then Act.

#6. Take initiative.

Good initiative is the combination of courage, ingenuity, and creativity employed in the absence of direction from others. A boss that takes initiative and allows initiative to flourish in employees is a leader that people want to follow.

#7. Show enthusiasm.

Your employees take their emotional cues from you. If you wallow in self-pity, fear, and doubt then so will your team.

#8. Be mindful of your bearing.

How you carry yourself is critical to how much people respect your leadership. Do you act with self-respect and respect for others? Do you keep your cool when the going gets tough?

Maintain a bearing of competence, confidence, and self-respect.

#9. Be unselfish.

A leader is on the constant lookout for how they can serve their followers.

A leader bleeds first and eats last.

Looking out for those you lead, even at your inconvenience and expense, is your job as a leader.

#10. Do something that scares you.

Courage is a critical leadership trait. Just like many other skills, you increase courage by practicing it. A timid soul will never make a good leader. Develop both physical and moral courage by making the right decision then acting on it even when it’s tough to do.

#11. Challenge yourself.

You never improve yourself if you never push yourself. Do hard things. Do things that are harder than you think you can do. You’ll find the only thing holding you back in many cases is thinking you can’t do it or fear you’d fail. Once you get past that, a world of possibility opens up to you.

A confident leader is a followed leader.

#12. Challenge a follower.

The same principle described above applies here. Lead someone out of there comfort zone. Outside of that zone of status quo is where growth happens. That’s where confidence is built. That’s where learning occurs. Do anything you can to break out of it and break your followers out.

#13. Show loyalty to your followers.

A good leader is loyal to their followers. They look out for them financially and personally. They fight for them to “corporate.” They defend them when needed. And they support them always.

#14. Communicate.

Keep your employees informed. This is the biggest downfall of many managers who refuse to be an efficient conduit of required information.

Keep your followers informed.

#15. Ask for ideas.

Your employees feel like part of the team when you ask for their ideas. Since they are on the front lines, they usually have the best perspective on problems and possibilities. Take the good ideas they have and implement them.

When followers know you are listening and willing to employ their ideas, they’ll engage more than ever before.

#16. Foster relationships among employees.

To be a team, employees have to feel like a team. They have to get to know each other better. Send them out to lunch on you but without you, so they can get to know each other without the dynamic of the boss there. There’s also a place for you there but sometimes they have to get close without the boss around.

#17. Share more of yourself.

You want to be human to your followers. Let them get to know you more personally while staying professional. If you are just seen as a higher-paid barker of orders with no human connection, it will be tough for followers to relate to you.

#18. Do one thing to increase your professional knowledge daily.

If you aren’t always learning, you are regressing. Your brain is either dying or growing. Many bosses think they know it all. This trait is one of the most self-limiting, ignorance-preserving, and damaging traits in all of business.

Be humble and vulnerable enough to know you need to learn something new daily.

#19. Check your character.

Your followers respect you only up to the level you respect yourself, no higher. Strong character, a sense of right and wrong, then courage to act on it determines the quality of leader you are.

#20. Take full responsibility.

This is the first step to true leadership. You are fully responsible for everything that takes place under you. At the same time, your team gets all the credit for successes. This is the prerequisite mindset to great leadership.

#21. Communicate purpose.

People have to know why they do what they do (in addition to just making money.) Why are you doing things in the way you are doing them? How are you coming to the decisions you are? Communicate the answers to these questions to them.

You need a North Star greater than money to be an effective leader.

#22. Maintain humility.

You are never better than your followers. When you combine your competence with a sense of vulnerability you gain the humility a leader needs. The best leaders are humble.

#23. Keep the mission transparent.

Let your people know why you and the company do things. Don’t just say “it is what it is.” Tell them why it is. They’ll feel like part of the team as they should. Being transparent can shut down the often moral-killing rumor mill.

#24. Adapt with agility.

A hallmark of a great leader is adaptability to changing situations. A leader who can adapt quickly is a highly valued and respected leader. Respected and admired by both by subordinates and superiors.

#25. Set the example.

The most effective way to become a better leader is to be who you want your followers to be.

What you do is always more important than what you say.