Want to be an effective leader? Do these 5 things.

Now a days we are so incredibly over stimulated it seems impossible to be a truly effective leader. We are running from meeting to meeting, trying to manage a team, trying to accomplish our goals, while also trying to raise a family, have good relationships, take care of ourselves, manage finance, and the list can go on and on and on. 

With all of these distractions, how can we possibly be effective leaders? 

(Don’t worry, I will tell you how and also personally teach you too, if you want.)

Here are the 5 ways you can be an effective leader. 

1. Self-Awareness: 

In order to be an effective leader, you must be self aware. 

Often times people think they are self-aware, but they are not. They are constantly distracted. 

Take being in a meeting for example. 

How many times do you see people on their cell phones or laptops and not even paying attention to the speaker? 

Recently, I was in a meeting and half the people were on their cell phones not even paying attention to the speaker!  I was so appalled and thought it was so rude. 

 Or 

Maybe, your mind is wandering and it’s hard to really pay attention to the speaker. 

In order to be a good leader, you have to be self-aware enough to know what you are doing in the moment, in a meeting, and with your colleagues. 

Are you even aware enough to know that you are distracted? 

To be self-aware you must be present and to be a good leader, you must be self-aware. (I can help you with that by the way). 

2. Be A Good Listener

In order to be an effective leader, you must be a good listener. I feel like we all kind of know this one, but do we actually do this?

I can not tell you how many times in a day, I observe people getting cutting off mid-sentence, or I am getting cut off mid-sentence, or the conversation is interrupted, and the person that was speaking never got to finish their thought. Or it is realized later and you go back to the person and they can’t remember what they were talking about. 

We think we are good listeners, but don’t even realize that we are doing one or more of these four things. 

1. Thinking about what you are going to say next-- so you are not really listening
2. Thinking about how you are going to solve the problem-- so you are not really hearing everything the person is saying. 
3. You already have an idea of where the conversation is going-- so you just cut them off and tell them what you think
4. You are looking at your phone, on your computer or doing some other distracting thing, that is, not “fully” listening to the other person. 

In order to be a good listener we must “FULLY” listen to the other person. 

DON’T SAY ANYTHING! (Nod and acknowledge, of course through body cues that you are listening--but DON’T say anything.) 

Bring your FULL attention to the other person. Let the person finish and HEAR everything. 

This will make you much more effective!

I promise! 

People want to feel HEARD. 

When people are HEARD they feel valued, respected and appreciated. 

Just LISTEN ok?

You will be MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE!!

3. Manage Emotions

To be a good leader you must be able to manage emotions when you get triggered.  

Recently, someone told me a story where a man had been trying to close a deal with a company and it had been taking FOREVER! The man was getting really impatient and really thought that this company was trying to screw him over. 

The company responded saying that-- “This is not going to work…”

The man saw just those few words, and FLIPPED OUT!

He was so frustrated with this company, he felt as though he was being pushed and pulled around and the man had, HAD IT! 

(We have all been there right?) 

He fired off an email so fast, cursing the company off with the way that he had been treated and said that he would never want to do business with this company EVER! 

The man felt satisfied with his response, and felt like “yeah, I just showed them, who they are messing with”. 

Until...the man went back to read the email again, and he noticed something different. 

He realized he had not read the ENTIRE email…

The email said, 

“This is not going to work.

Let’s schedule a meeting next week.” 

Oh snap! 

The man never finished reading the ENTIRE email and he already sent the email where he cursed out the company!  (Palm in face) 

Being a good leader, requires us to manage our emotions when we get trigger and not just react when we read the first sentence of an email. 

(If you need some help with this, I got you!) 

4. Being Calm Under Pressure

Being an effective leader requires you to be calm under pressure. 

We have a ton of things that are constantly vying for our attention either at work or at home and probably both in any given moment.  

At some point we are going to have to make critical decisions. We are going to have to decide what direction we are going to go, and often times we make decisions off of our emotions.

If we are feeling stressed out, we might make poor decisions. For example, it’s late we are starving and we buy the biggest and most greasy burger and fries possible with a soda, and finish it off with an ice cream sundae.

Or maybe your thing is drinking and we are so stressed that we just drink a couple of beers that turn into a little too much. 

If we are frustrated with something we might snap at someone, who has nothing to do with what we are frustrated about. 

Being able to manage our emotions and stay calm under pressure is HUGE. You want to allow this feeling of pressure to pass, feeling that you want greasy food to pass and not ACT out on the pressure. 

Notice it and let the feeling pass (it will ALWAYS pass). This can help you manage the pressure and make you very effective.

I promise!  

That’s the 4th thing that will make you an effective leader. 

5. Empathy

This is a big one.

Empathy means (according to Brene Brown) “feeling with people”. As a leader we must be able to be empathetic to people and their needs. We must be able to see things from other people’s perspectives and understand where they are coming from. 

Jeff Weiner the CEO of LinkedIn told a story where a colleague wrote him an email that really triggered Jeff. 

At first, Jeff could not believe that this colleague wrote this email and Jeff got really angry. 

Then he thought, wait a second. Let me think about where this person is coming from and let me ask this person why they wrote this and what made this person so angry. 

Jeff was quickly able to recognize his anger, stay calm, think about how he wanted to respond to this person and then, empathize (feel with this person)  to try to understand where this person is coming from and why they wrote such an angry email. 

Ultimately, having empathy for others, understanding where people are coming from will help transform your relationships with other colleagues, and if done consistently overtime can actually transform an entire culture. 

Conclusion:

So there you have it. Practicing these 5 things can really transform your leadership and make you more effective.

What are your thoughts? Agree? Disagree?

Leave your comments below. 

PS: If need help with any of these, give me a shout! This is what I do and I LOVE helping people be better versions of themselves. At least when you are stressed you should at least have the tools to support you, right? DM- me. 

 Wondering who I am and not sure who this Chantelle Fitzgerald is… check out my website www.mindsetstrategiesllc.com .  Don't worry, I am cool. :-)

Schedule a time to chat here: bit.ly/LetsTalk21