In this guide we’ll talk to you about how to be a great leader in 54 quick and easy steps (screech)…54?? That can’t be right can it???

No…In five top tips, I talk to you about how to be an effective great leader.

Hi there, Lee here, as I say five top tips to enable you to be a great leader. Now I’ve had the privilege of working with lots of different leaders in large organisations, small organisations and I’ve seen the processes they put in place the actions the behaviours that enable them to command respect and to lead their people effectively.

I’ve also seen some poor leadership as well and I’ve learned from both of those experiences together with my knowledge of best practice tools and techniques to come up with my five top tips which I believe will ensure that you’re able to lead effectively any team that you manage.

So let’s start with tip number one, okay and that’s about Humility.

Now fundamentally humility is about having a degree of self-awareness and having the confidence to admit that you don’t know it all. Okay, as a leader you have to sometimes stick your hand up and say that I’ve got it wrong or I don’t have that knowledge or I have to defer to somebody else who has that skill set and knowledge that I don’t possess at the time and having the confidence to show that potential weakness in some people’s eyes does actually have the reverse effect it shows that you are strong as a leader so making sure that you have the right amount of humility and are able to be humble with the process is a good first step.

Okay tip number two – Credibility.

You have to ensure that you come across as a credible leader. Now credibility can come across in different ways, it can be qualifications, your background, experience but fundamentally it’s about delivering on your promises so just doing what you say you’re gonna do. It’s no more simpler than that!

Tip number three – Sustainability. So what do I mean by sustainability?

Well that’s about making sure that you’re consistent in your approach of leadership and again that’s about managing your emotions. Nobody likes a manager or a leader that is unapproachable and they’re unapproachable because they don’t know how they’re gonna be on that particular day so you could be having a great day and be fantastic and smiley and then the next day you could be down in the dumps and kind of really depressive so you have to make sure that you’re level in the leadership engagement is consistent. That way people know what to expect from you how to treat you how to be treated by you and you become much more approachable so avoid the kind of dips of emotions and have that sustainability that constant approach to how you come across in your behaviours and your actions in your demeanour making sure you’re in control of your emotions.

Okay, so tip number four Adaptability.

Now that’s about understanding how you change your style of leadership depending on circumstances of the situation’s that you’re faced with often known as situational leadership and Blanchard did a great piece of work on that. There is work available that you can actually find out more information about your preference of the situational leadership style but the ability to adapt and approach situations depending on the person that you’re dealing with all the people that you’re dealing with or the situation itself and showing the best outcome through that adaptability is a key skill so know your preference but also know how to change your style of leadership depending on the situation and the circumstances.

And the last tip, number five Accountability.

Delegation is part and parcel of good effective leadership but retaining the accountability particularly when things go wrong is very important for how your team respects you and how you’re seen in the eyes of your customer. So I see a lot of managers when things go wrong still talking in terms of ‘I’:

‘I own this problem’
‘It was my fault’
‘I was responsible for it’

That’s great accountability even if the task was delegated, even if a member of your team actually did the work or caused the error. The accountability lies with you as the manager so you’re taking the hits. You’re taking it on your shoulders. You are taking the accountability and the responsibility of that particular task.

Now if it goes well then again it’s talking in terms of ‘we’ what if we do what as a team or even naming the individuals that you did the piece of work but that ability to take accountability of the task and roles and actual errors. If they occur is a good trait of strong leaders and they use that well to ensure their credibility is within the team and they build trust within the team as well.

So there you have it our five tips to being a great leader. Thank you for watching the video and if you’d like some more information now take a look at this our Running with Lions leadership guide available on Amazon.