There is a lot more to leading a team than many people realize. Not only do you need to have a great personality, there are certain skills that you need to have, including being able to think strategically. You not only have to know how to tell people what they need to do, but also make sure that they are doing their jobs properly, without being over-bearing. Let’s take a look at some ways that you can build your leadership skills.
#1. Take a Leadership Skills Test
Go online and take a leadership quiz to see where your skills lie, and what you need to work on. It will tell your leadership personality, and how you can build on your abilities and strengths. There will be loads of great tips you can use that will help you to advance in your career as a great team leader, including how to make your team members feel like they can come to you when they have problems with their jobs.
#2. Know Your Skills and Limitations
Take some time to think about yourself. How do you handle stressful situations? How do you like to lead? Do you ask others for help when you need it? Do you act overly bossy? Do you lead by example? Do you worry about your team not heading in the right direction? Knowing yourself is the first step to improving leadership skills. Once you understand your limitations, you can work on them and turn them into something positive that you can bring to your team.
#3. Lead Outside of Work
Become a charity board member, and get hands-on experience in leading a team. This is going to help you in your work, and it feels good when you know you are helping a non-profit organization. You will be gaining a lot of experience, not only with team leadership, but also in running a complicated operation successfully. It is also a great thing to have on your resume. In fact, any type of volunteer work is good to include on a resume.
#4. Learn about Team Building
You need to know how to create an effective team. This means that you should start working on team building skills. Look at the strengths and weaknesses of your co-workers. Who are team players, and who are best left to their own devices? The more you can learn about team building, the better and more effective your team is going to be. Look for ways to get them involved with every step of projects, so they will feel like they are really contributing to the company and feel good about what they are doing.
#5. Follow Your Values and Morals
A lot of people think that they need to check their morals and values at the door when they become team leaders. This couldn’t be further from the truth. If you are showing integrity in your work, it will improve the way your team sees you. It will also help the way you see yourself. A lot of people find that they ignore their values and morals because they think that it will help them to get ahead in the workplace. All it actually does is make them realize that they don’t have the integrity that they thought they had, and eventually this leads to poor leadership skills because they no longer care about anything.
#6. Use all Available Tools
There are going to be a lot of little things you will need to learn about in order to become a more effective team leader. One of the success secrets of successful team leaders is using how to use the tools that make all jobs a lot easier, such as creating schedules.
#7. Lead by Example
If you want your team to follow you, you need to lead by example and be a great role model. Don’t just walk the walk. Get in there and do the work with them, and show that you are a leader who cares. If you just sit behind a desk and bark out orders, you aren’t going to receive nearly the level of respect that you will if you show that you are not afraid to get your hands dirty. Your team needs to see that you are willing to help them when they run into any bumps in the road with any projects they are working on.
#8. Know when to Take a Step Back
There are going to be times when members of your team are better capable of handling certain tasks than you are. Don’t be afraid to step back and let them take charge when the situation calls for it. Not only will this take some of the load off you, it will show them that you are not afraid to step back and let someone else do the work and that you are able to admit when you are not the best person for a job.
#9. Take an Online Leadership Course
You can build your leadership skills by taking online courses. This is going to help you to develop all of the skills you need in order to become an effective team leader. Look for the course that best suits your need. There are many of them out there, and they all will help you to be able to become the best team leader that you can be. The more skills you can develop, the better you will be at your role of team leader.
#10. Keep a Journal
No matter what you do in life, keeping a journal is a good way to keep things going in the right direction. Make a journal that is just for your career, and write down anything you think of that you may want to read later. If you don’t know where to start, create an entry that tells the top traits of a good team leader, and go from there.
Image: Leader Leadership Skill Authority Influence Concept
