Simple Leadership Steps At The Beginning Of Your Career

LeadershipDo you have leadership capabilities? Are you a born leader? Are there any instances where you showcased your leadership skills? How good are your team management skills?

These questions will keep coming back to you as you progress in your career and rise up the rungs of the corporate ladder. Have you ever wondered why leadership is so highly valued in the corporate world and beyond?

Good leadership brings a lot of great qualities and skills along with it. Honesty, sincerity, integrity, teamwork, positive attitude, delegation skills and the ability to inspire come along with good leadership.

There has been the timeless argument on whether good leaders are born with inherent qualities or can good leaders be made.  Recent studies have indeed shown that leadership trainings can definitely create a change in people and such a change can really create an impact in the work environment.

In this post, we will try to relate to the small but simple leadership steps that will get you started. Once you appreciate the ‘change’ in you, you will start appreciating the benefit of imbibing the qualities of a leader.

Start Owning First and Then Delegate

 Most of us shy away from owning things because it carries along with it a responsibility. You must have encountered situations where there are conflicts in a group when individuals do not reach an agreement. This happens mostly when some of the tasks are ugly or difficult to handle and none wants to own it. In such situations, the natural leader resolves the issue by taking up the ugly tasks.

Owning the ugliest task and doing it whole-heartedly not only gives you a sense of accomplishment but also creates followers for you. The next time when the same group has a conflicting situation they will look upto you for the delegation of the task.

Deal With Your Insecurities

 People are reluctant to share knowledge or information because they think holding on to it will create a stable position for them. This is very common in the corporate world where employees want to become indispensable to their companies and keep themselves secure.

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Good leadership comes with exposure first and experience afterwards. For exposure, one has to move on and create a space for someone else in his or her position. Leaders are extremely confident people and are not bothered by insecurities of transition. They are constantly in lookout for opportunities and do not hesitate to move on from a comfortable position.

To move on and gain exposure you have to deal with your insecurities first. So the next time when you are asked to change your team you should consider it as opportunity rather than a challenge.

Know Your Strengths But Know Your Weaknesses Better

 Once we had an annual sales presentation meeting. Every team from different product lines had to do their presentation. Though it has been years now, I still remember one team very well not because their presentation went extremely well but because no one from the audience could be attentive to their presentation. This was because the main presenter, supposedly the leader of the team was extremely bad in his presentation- both verbal and non-verbal. He was constantly shouting and trying to use all kind of body gestures to communicate his message.

In retrospection, I think a better job could have been done by delegating the main part of the presentation to another team member with better public speaking skill.

In order to gain attention and seek opportunities leaders do not resort to doing things, which they are not capable of. They know to play their cards well and know how to leverage the strengths of their followers.


Contributed by Sanjit Das ( Class of 2005, IBS HYDERABAD )

 

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