There’s no shortage of advice about how to be an effective business leader. Scores of books have been written, speeches given, and interviews conducted with experts about the best way to lead a company to success. With all that information floating out there, narrowing in on the simplest, most effective leadership strategies can seem overwhelming. However, there are several time-tested ways to use your leadership skills to maximize your company’s cohesiveness and success. Here are a few of the most well-researched ways that leaders can promote a great corporate culture.
Responsibility and Accountability
According to Ivy Exec, the best, most effective business leaders lead by example, always striving to practice what they preach. The psychological reasons for the admiration people feel towards these types of leaders are complex, but they generally have to do with integrity. Everyone has likely had a boss or other leader who demonstrated laziness, hypocrisy or some other negative trait. You may have experienced this yourself and likely lost respect for that person. While compliance can be mandated by even the worst leader—at least for a little while—truly effective leadership requires mutual respect between leader and follower. This includes holding yourself, as a leader, to the same standards as those you are leading.
Continuous Learning
A major tenant of Sun Tzu’s “Art of War,” the famous treatise on strategy and leadership, is the necessity for constant adaptation to the circumstances as a prerequisite for success. According to Celerant, the more experience a business leader gets, the more prone they are to thinking that it’s the newer, more inexperienced people who need outside guidance. In reality, everyone benefits from learning, especially about subjects that are in a continuous state of development. Constant personal improvement is an asset for everyone, especially for the leaders of a company or group.
Resourcefulness
The best decisions are made when the most information is available. According to Organizational Physics, traditional models of leadership usually feature a rigid top-down structure, where the leader dictates the course of action to the follower and the follower obediently executes the plan. While there is a place for this type of leadership, like the battlefield, it often translates poorly to a boardroom or other collaborative activity. Alternatively, using an adaptive leadership model in which input is given by all participants greatly increases the brainpower devoted to solving a particular problem, increasing the likelihood of a positive outcome for the team.
You can make use of these strategies for a more harmonized, productive and enjoyable company culture. As a leader, you can build an environment that makes the most of your company’s potential.
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