Leadership Words to Inspire Your Success

When creating a successful business venture you need both a great idea, and the ability to lead and inspire a team to bring the concept to life. Finding a unique idea is a challenge, but what really sets the entrepreneurs apart from the dreamers is the ability to execute on it. No matter how old you are, or what stage of your career that you’re in, as soon as you make your first hire you’re on the path to leadership. When business is looking promising leadership is easy enough, but as soon as money gets tight, the stress levels get to you and it’s easy to let this impact your ability to manage your team. Learning to lead is no easy feat, so take this course and discover what you need to know as you’re just starting out.

This following list of words defines the qualities that the most successful leaders strive to achieve every day. Have a look through these as you begin your journey into management and try to live each of these values every day. If you can master all of them your career will be poised for phenomenal success!

Intuition

If your business is forging a path into new technology there’s no road map for success. Every decision you make is based on the best information at the time, and along with the higher risk comes even greater pressure. Sometimes, you need to make an instant choice, and this is where you need to rely on your natural intuition. Your gut instincts.

Guiding your team through the day to day is simple and many management techniques can be used to assist along the way. But when a crisis or a new opportunity emerges it’s up to you to offer guidance. You can draw on past experiences to help make a decision, or reach out to your mentors for their advice and support. Despite all this the tough decisions will fall on your shoulders, and the only answer is the one you can find inside. You must learn to trust yourself, and your instincts.

Honesty

No matter the standards you account yourself to, it’s important to raise the bar higher again when you’re leading a team. Nothing speaks louder than walking the path you preach, and ultimately your entire business and all of your staff will reflect the values you project. Make ethical and honest behavior a key value and communicate this to all of your staff. A list of values and core beliefs does wonders once it’s written down and encourages your team to hold themselves accountable, and creates a friendly and helpful working environment.

Communication

Communication skills are critical for every leader. Just because you know exactly what needs to be done in your head, doesn’t mean that your team is always on the same page. If your team are struggling to understand what you’re looking for you may need to sharpen your communication skills. You can learn how to improve these dramatically in a one day course like this one, and move forward being able to describe exactly what’s on your mind. Being able to relate your vision to the team is critical in getting them working to the same goal.

The second part of this trait is that healthy lines of communication must be developed. As you bring on new team members and develop your existing workforce you need to decide on your communication policy. Is it an open-door invitation into your office, or do you make a point to spend 5-10 minutes talking to your staff every day. You can learn more about the benefits of communication and effective teamwork in this recent post. Essentially the more accessible you are, the faster you’ll build trust and have your team depending on you. Once you master this they’ll work even harder for you.

Confidence

Confidence is key because there will be many days where the future looks bleak. No matter what has caused your business to stray from the plan, what’s critical is not to panic. One of the most important parts of a leaders role is to maintain the morale in the team, whilst putting out any “fires” that have spontaneously erupted. The best way to do this is to maintain strong lines of communication, and assure your team that setbacks always happen, and their focus needs to be on the ultimate goal. Maintaining your confidence throughout this is key, if you project a sense of calm composure your team will follow suit. The simpler you make it seem to pick up all of the pieces and start damage control, the faster the team will get started and continue moving ahead. Sometimes it can be difficult to maintain this, so check out this course and learn the tricks to being confident – no matter what.

Sense of Humor

In line with confidence, a sense of humor is a must for every leader. It doesn’t matter if your website is crashing, your funding has dried up, or your biggest client has just walked out. Your goal is to get your team through whatever problem has come, without panic. The higher you can keep morale, the better positioned you are to pick up the pieces and start again. A sense of humor pays massive dividends here, if you can encourage your team to learn from the mistakes and laugh it off. Being able to find something positive in your struggles you’ll develop a healthy work environment, which your staff will enjoy being a part of. The stage is set by the leader, so make your best effort to crack a joke every now and then, or talk personally with your employees about their upcoming travel or weekend plans. Even just a quick distraction from a task at hand can boost productivity and morale even higher.

Commitment

There’s no possible way to get your team committed without leading by example. For a staff member there’s nothing more motivating than seeing their boss, in the trenches working alongside them to meet a deadline or fix a problem. When your staff can see work being done on every level, you prove to them your commitment to being a successful leader – earning the respect of your team while energizing them all with your hardworking energy.

Commitment needs to be shown on the work your team is doing, as well as the promises you’ve made. Always keep your word and you’ll soon develop a reputation for being a fair leader, alongside your ability to work hard. Both of these contribute to earning the respect of your team, and once they respect you you’ll be able to get the most out of them.

Delegation

The most successful leaders are the ones trust their team to deliver on the ultimate vision. If you can’t delegate and entrust your team to take you there, you’ll struggle to reach the next level in your business. Trusting your team is not a sign of weakness, but a strength. Done properly, it’s one of the most important skills you need to master as a leader, because as business grows you’ll start stretching yourself thinner and thinner. Emails and tasks start forming a massive pile on your desk, and you just can’t do it all yourself without spending 100 hours a week on it – or massively compromising on quality. If you’ve never relinquished control before check out this course on how to delegate effectively.

What you need to focus on is identifying the certain tasks each individual member in your team does best, and capitalizing on them. Simple questions to find out what each member of your team likes to do is key, because if they enjoy a task they will put more effort into it. It’s really win-win, your staff see that you’re entrusting them to do things that are important and that they like, while freeing your time up to focus on higher level tasks that cannot be delegated. Find the right balance and your businesses productivity will skyrocket!

Attitude

Maintaining a positive attitude is fundamental for a leader to motivate their team to continued success. This ranges from providing snacks and coffee, to sitting down for one-on-ones with your staff and talking about whatever is troubling them. Don’t forget that everyone in your team is an individual, and also a person. Sometimes you need to do a little extra to keep them upbeat, and they’ll be even more productive. Happy staff don’t mind staying an extra hour to finish a proposal or putting in 100% of their efforts into a project. It’s up to the leader to create this positive atmosphere, without sacrificing productivity and having your staff enjoy work a little too much. If you struggle to stay positive, spend the time to complete this course and you’ll soon start seeing the world in a new (and positive) light!

Creativity

The final trait is to maintain your creativity. Decisions can be difficult, and sometimes you are forced off course and need to make fast decisions. As a leader you need to think outside of the box, while evaluating what decision will be the best for the company. Finding solutions often requires you to approach a problem a little differently, so be prepared for anything.

Use these list of values to decide the leader you want to become. Mastering them all will set you up for success, no matter what path your career follows. Everyone is always looking for great leaders, so become a fantastic leader today!