Effective leadership skills are tough to acquire and even harder to refine. Here’s how you can become a better manager.
Climbing the career ladder means people look to you for leadership, but taking on that new-found responsibility can be an eye-opener.
Research by the Chartered Management Institute suggests 82% of bosses are “accidental managers” without formal leadership training. The survey reveals a fifth of managers aren’t confident in their leadership abilities, with many struggling to deal sensitively with issues facing their team members.
Managers who don’t lead their staff effectively have a deep impact on the workplace, leaving employees feeling unmotivated, dissatisfied, and more likely to leave their jobs.
So, what’s the best way to embrace management and become a great leader? Five bosses give us their top tips.
Tim Lancelot, head of sales enablement at technology specialist MHR, said great leaders command respect rather than laying down the law: “Be someone people want to follow and who leads by example.”
Lancelot said being value-led is also important for senior executives. One of the main reasons he took a role at MHR 18 months ago was that the family-owned company had a different culture from the equity partner-owned organization where he’d worked previously.
“I think it’s crucial to be true to values, whether those are company values or personal values. That is the kind of leader people want to follow”, he said, before suggesting the best leaders are honest and practical.
“You must steer a straight course because leadership is not whimsical. Some values and principles stay the same, even though the data and the circumstances change.”
Sophie Gallay, global data and client IT director at French retailer Etam, said the best leaders don’t dictate.
