How To Be A Great Business Leader
Becoming a better team member, manager, or leader is always learning process. Through continuous learning, you grow your knowledge and skills, build your capacity to take on new challenges, and push closer to achieving our potential. If you are curious about how you can improve your leadership or how to foster growth in others, it is important to understand how learning works, specifically for adults. In this article, you can read about tips on How To Be A Great Business Leader.
1) You need to be willing to learn about your blind spots and seek to become more self-aware. In other words, be open to understanding what is holding you back as a leader. You can accomplish this by being attentive to performance reviews, 360-degree assessments, feedback from peers, colleagues, etc. This is easier said than done because we often have a difficult time seeing ourselves objectively. For example, you may think of yourself as a great communicator but, through 360 feedback, are told by numerous colleagues that they are frustrated with your communication style. Embracing this is the key to beginning the learning process and becoming a better leader.
2) One you identify a growth opportunity, set a goal to improve and begin to practice the new behaviors you want to demonstrate. At this phase, you may feel uncomfortable and overwhelmed as you struggle, especially if you are working against deeply ingrained habits. Staying positive and determined is the key to moving forward. In the example of needing to improve communications, you may find yourself struggling and frustrated as you try a totally different style and approach to how you present in a team meeting.
3) At some point, as you continue to practice and seek continual feedback on your progress, you’ll become more proficient at expressing the leadership skill that you’ve been working on. This may take weeks or months, but with effort you’ll eventually reach a point where you are showing clear improvement. Again using the case of needing to improve your communications, you are now consistently demonstrating better clarity and tone as validated by your colleagues. However, at this phase you still have to be very intentional and conscious about these behaviors. Continued repetitions are the key to making this change last.
4) Finally, with continued work and persistence, your new leadership behaviors will become “automatic,” or, in other words, you’ll demonstrate them without having to be intentional. Now in your meetings and interactions, you no longer have to go out of your way to try to be a better communicator. You now are a better communicator because of your willingness to listen to feedback and commitment and effort. You have to guard against regression but consistency will keep you sharp. Now is a great time to seek more feedback and re-start the learning process.
Learning, especially in the case of becoming a better leader, is a journey, not a destination. Those who want to improve must always be willing to build awareness, seek feedback, prioritize their learning needs, and be determined to succeed.
Thank you for reading “How To Be A Great Business Leader”. Hopefully, you´ve found it successful. If you have any further questions, don´t hesitate to comment below!
