• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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BusinessDay

The essentials of effective leadership

Leadership

Effective leadership can be explained in several ways. Cooper and Nirenberg see effective leadership as “the successful exercise of personal influence by one or more people that results in accomplishing shared objectives in a way that is personally satisfying to those involved.”.Effective leadership plays a role in whether an organization succeeds or fails. Organizations with effective leadership are more likely to sustain growth momentum and attain levels of greatness that were never thought achievable.

For an organization to truly excel and be the best at what it does, it needs leaders who not only are passionate but also committed and competent in getting things done. These leaders also need to inspire confidence in both the employees and their customers. Thus, the first thing that is central to effective leadership is a commitment to the core values of the organization. Effective leadership is founded on a long-standing single-minded commitment to fundamental values.

The second thing that is key to effective leadership is leaders having the right behaviour and style that fits in with the culture and system of an organization. What makes effective leadership stand out in the midst of mediocrity are the unique attributes that are manifested in their behaviour and style of leadership. An effective leader is one that creates the situation that works best for the people and organization through the combination of both skills and processes.

This raises the question, how important is effective leadership to an organization?

Simple, it is imperative if an organization wants to remain relevant for a long time, no matter what kind of organization it is. The truth is that we live in uncertain times, where things are always changing at the speed of light. Therefore, when managing change, it is essential to have effective leadership in place, as it is the only way to sustain an organization in the ever-changing world that we live in.

Considering then how vital effective leadership is to an organization, it is very essential that organizations find a way to assess their leaders on how effective they are. Why is this assessment so critical? Without evaluation, how can organizations be sure that their leaders are being useful in leading and delivering results? The review provides the much-needed data of the current state of the organization when it comes to leadership from the perspective of both leadership and the followers. It shows both the positive and negative feedback, thus equipping leaders to know where they need to scale up in fulfilling their responsibilities.

Having the proper strategic method of assessment should, therefore, be a top priority for any organization. This means that organizations need to find a sustainable way for assessing their leaders to ensure they are effective in their roles. To this end, organizations need to be specific to the criteria on which they are evaluating and assessing their leaders.

Before an organization begins any assessment, they need to be very clear on what they are evaluating as far as the effectiveness of their leaders is concerned. Choosing what criteria to use depends on a lot of variables. Which include the kind of organization, its needs, the department, and what the role of the leader is.

That being said, the criteria should cover different sections and areas of performance. So that as an organization, you are assessing your leaders on more than one component, therefore getting a fuller picture of how effective they are.

How then do you decide what to use as criteria?

When it comes to measuring effective leadership, there are many schools of thought. John Campbell, a professor of psychology, has done a lot of research on job performance. Over the years, John Campbell and his colleagues have come up with 14 Factors that Measure leadership and management performance, 6 of those factors apply to leadership. These factors include how effective the leader guides and directs work methods and roles, trains, and coaches others, provides recognition and support, delegates authority and responsibility, serves as a role model, and encourages goal achievement.

These six factors are in line with nine skills that Blank (2001) advocated as skills of a natural-born leader, as cited by Steinhoff (2015). These skills are broken into categories. The foundational category includes self-awareness, the ability to build rapport, and the ability to clarify expectations. Then there is the directional category that consists of the ability to map out territory to identify needs, the ability to chart out a course of leadership action, and the ability to develop others as leaders. Lastly, there is the influence category that includes the ability to build the base to gain commitment, the ability to influence others to willingly follow, and finally the ability to create a motivating environment.

Toye Sobande is a strategic leadership expert, lawyer, public speaker, and trainer. He is the President of Stephens Leadership Consultancy LLC, a strategy and management consulting firm offering creative insight and solutions to businesses and leaders. Email: [email protected]