By: Wilhelm Mwashekuna
I am not yet a real leader as I only have a team of two under me, but I have been consuming a lot of information on how to be a good leader if not a better one, in different situations that are worth sharing.
I have been observing multiple individuals that are put into positions where they not only have to deal with the work, the resources, and the outsiders but also have to direct their colleagues, guide them, and treat them as their kids. In a nutshell, it makes them leaders.
Some are close to being good at it but most of them struggle. I found out that if all of them applied the following five key leadership principles, we could have one category for all of them instead of having the best and the bad.
These five principles have been proven to have brought ordinary individuals to 75% good leaders.They have won the laziest leaders awards by just focusing on them.
1. Extreme Ownership (Own up everything under you)
A lot of leaders do believe in accountability. They are super proud when hell breaks or bad things happen and they have someone to hold accountable for it.
Imagine if I was the chief financial officer of your company, and somewhere somehow, there was a shortage of some coins that were not picked up, and now causing a discrepancy in the books. Of course, you would award me a gift after finding out that it was the HR manager who was still paying an employee that resigned two months ago, but will your shareholders kiss my chicks when I tell them that the blame is on the HR manager and not me? I will tell you what they will do for me! they will fire me the same second! Yeah, just like that.
I would instead explain that, yes we had a payroll error, which should be blamed on me. I was suppose to make sure that the resigned employee is removed from the pay-roll.Secondly, it was my duty to audit every month’s report so as to spot ghost employees. And for this, I will maybe warned or tightly punished, but trust me! I will still have my job.
2. Know that you are the leader (Consciousness)
After owning up to your blunders and mistakes, you will automatically have the courage to understand that the whole team depends on you. As one man said, “there is no bad team, only a bad leader”.
Having this engraved in your medulla will give you a daily spirit of turning around situations that your team may find itself in due to weaknesses and cooperation problems.
3. Communicating the morale
This is mostly the first principle in most leadership lessons but with my innovation for the 2 above, it now lands at number 3, communicating the reasons behind your expectations, moves, instructions, targets, missions, and goals makes you the best director. Your team will now be able to push itself without you, they now understand their whole existence in that operational space and they will be able to think like you. In fact, with this principle, you make everyone in your team a leader of their own and what I know from this experience is, working with this kind of team feels like nothing on earth because I can’t relate it to anything on here.
This principle does not only serve as the automated remote to move your team while eating nuts seated but it also brings your team to complete. Your team becomes in accord with you and follows you everywhere regardless of their life, and they become undismayed by any danger.
I have seen a broke company that could not afford any salaries for three months, nor provide the employees with anything toincentivise them but because of the leader, everybody stayed. Employees from far sacrificed their savings on transport fares to come to work, and the team worked hard as if they owned the business until they turned the tables.
4. Simple/Simplify
This sounds like the previous principle but they are two different things. Choosing a leadership position is taking up confidence that you do understand your operation better. You are aware of the contingent situation that may arise and you are fit enough to plan for them. Budget for them, and execute them successfully. So any operation comes with a lot of complexities, sometimes your plans and orders are also complicated for your team to understand, and when things go wrong, as they inevitably go wrong, complexity compounds issues that can spiral out of control into a total mess.
As a good leader trying to be a better one, communicating these plans and orders in a manner that each of your members understands their role, in the mission, and what to do in any of these contingent events moves you a step there. If you have communicated your plans, strategies, and orders but the team hasn’t understood them then the joke is on you, you have miserably failed. I would say communicate the strategies like you telling it to the 4-year-old.
5. Prioritise and Execute
* Evaluate the highest priority problem (apply the urgent and most important rule)
* Layout simple, clear, and concise terms as the highest priority effort for your team.
*Develop and determine a solution. Seek external advice if possible.
* Direct the execution of that solution, focusing everything on that solution.
*Move on to the next highest priority.
*REPEAT.
A TIP: Do not let the focus on one priority cause target fixation. Maintain to see other problems developing and rapidly shifting as needed.
Wilhelm Mwashekuna is a founder and managing partner at Sugetech Investments CC, an accounting, tax, and business consulting firm.085 7357 310 or Email: sugebuz@yahoo.com.
The Unconventional and Unorthodox Thoughts IS LEADERSHIP LEARNED OR A GENETIC THING?
