7 TECHNIQUES FOR IMPROVING YOUR LEADERSHIP SKILLS

7 TECHNIQUES FOR IMPROVING YOUR LEADERSHIP SKILLS
One question pops into the mind whenever the topic of leadership is brought up. Both leaders and team mates are working for the completion and success of a project, so what is the difference between the leader and his/ her team members? There is an analogy that explains this in the best, and most understandable way.
Ever been to an orchestra performance? If no, then you must have heard a choir? These two consist of professional musicians; instrumentalists and choristers. They are professionals and that provides the implication that they are well-trained and experienced right? So, why do they need a conductor when performing? Why can’t they just play/ sing their parts and be done with the performance?
Organization and Synchronicity. A conductor knows what every part should sound like individually, and what they should sound like together (most are musicians themselves). If left alone, the orchestra or choir may put up a fairly good performance. However, the beauty of listening to their performance comes from the weeks of training with the conductor and delivering with organized steps, in perfect synchrony.
That’s almost exactly how it works for teams –with the exception of microphones and violins. Everyone on the team is great, or at least very good, but the point of the team is to put those individual skills together in collaborative effort to deliver a project successfully. Organizing that productivity is the responsibility of the leader. The concept of being a ‘great leader’ is so comprehensive and subjective. Your qualities as a leader is typically reflected partly in the team you are leading, the mission/ project you are leading towards, as well as your personal traits. The combination of these factors can have you described as a great leader, or not, depending on the context.
In a team where patience is needed for completing the task(s), a short fuse and casual attention to details, will not make you a great leader. Contrary to this, where the project is more on being timely, without particular specialty in details, being overly patient with your team may not get the work done. Due to the possibility of this, it becomes imperative to highlight what your ground skills are and avoid going in the wrong direction with a project at hand. As a leader, you have to design, plan and follow-up with the team members to ensure that everyone is contributing optimum standards for the progression and productivity of the team, as a whole.
Having established who a leader is, we can explore leadership skills. Remember that analogy? The leader in those scenarios (music conductor) has to have skills pertaining to music, which gives the basis of your skills as a leader –knowledge and experience in your respective field. Regardless of the diverse fields of practice, there are some skills which cut across all fields of expertise giving us a definite ground for developing your techniques as a leader. Some of these skills include, but are not limited to;

• Passion

First, and most central to being not just a leader, but also a team member, is passion for what you are doing. If you are expressing active enthusiasm and interest in the job to be done, your team members will fend off your energy and also develop motivation towards the project. Your passion also directs how you go about planning and mobilizing to organize your team to be as productive and efficient as possible.

• Commitment

Yes, you can be passionate without being committed. You can either treat your project like a summer fling, hot one moment and cold the next, or be committed to it like a long-term relationship. However, you have to remember that commitment can quickly transform to overbearingness, and being overbearing will only drain the energy out of your team, not inspire it. Stay committed within rational limits and use that as the driving force for productivity.

• Discipline

Earlier, it was mentioned that sometimes you, as the leader, might have to be extensively patient or curt. Well, discipline is that skill that helps you create a balance between both extremes, and get the work done rightly. Discipline means that you can allow your team to be somewhat relaxed, but not so much that they start acting lax towards work to be done. Discipline is the skill that helps you create a healthy working environment such that your team would not want to disappoint you; but they wouldn’t see you as a dictator either. It brings about respect for you, and the project.

• Authenticity

Going on from where we left off above, respect is very important in any team. Respect between everyone on the team, respect for the leader and respect for the team work. Being authentic is same as being original, and it really gains you the respect that is needed to support discipline. When it comes to planning the action of the team, you need to be authentic with ideas. The moment it seems like you are chipping off someone else’s work or method, it reduces your commitment and discipline, which, by extension, demoralizes your team members.

• Reliability

Being a leader who fosters communication, discipline and all the other skills means that you are assuring the team of your reliability. They know that if they hit a stomp in their assigned roles, they can meet you for clarification and expect constructive criticism. Being reliable as a leader is very important to the success of your team work.

• Accountability

Some people file this away under discipline but it is important to highlight accountability as a concept on its own. It is easy to get carried away as a leader; calling the shots, orchestrating all the action. However, that doesn’t emit any of these skills and traits. The best way to lead is by ensuring your accountability to the team. As you request for their progress reports, submit yours as well. When you give out tasks, highlight yours too. This way, you are more integrated into the productivity of the team as a whole.
Seeing as we have established the necessary skills you should possess as a leader, it is expected that you should be introspective and check if these skills are represented in the way you lead your team. If they are not, they you know they need to be developed. If they are represented, a little extra boost will only get your team to be more productive.
While you are a leader, the entirety of your title and responsibility is focused on the team itself. Here are the top techniques and strategies to develop your skills as a leader.

• Understanding your style

Not your sense of fashion, your leadership style. Different leadership strokes apply to different folks. You may be more committed than you are passionate, which means you are more disciplined when it comes to leadership and that’s your style.
To uncover what your style is, you need to be very self-aware. How best do you get the job done? Deadline or passion to see something you’ve worked on be put in action? Understanding your personal approach to work will help you understand your leadership style. When you’ve identified your style, you can identify which skills you need to focus more on improving.

• Address weakness(es)

Weakness in this context apply to both personal weaknesses and the lapses in the team as a whole. You may have a team complete with efficient workers and no creative team member, which can affect the authenticity of your leadership and project. Similarly you can have a dedicated team with no passion and try as you may, it would reflect in your end result.
You can take out time to reflect on each individual member of the team’s strengths and weaknesses, and find a way to address them such that it promotes cooperation and productivity among the team. You also have to take note of your own weaknesses as a leader, and come up with constructive ways to work on those weaknesses without affecting the productivity of your team.

• Communication

The key to all techniques is communication. While there are weaknesses which are very visible, others require subjective opinions to identify and address them. Encourage your team to share their opinions, commendations, reservations and suggestions about your leadership and the team work in general. This can be done anonymously to avoid ostracisation of a team member.
Communication can also be used to improve your authenticity, reliability and accountability as a leader. Encourage communication by prompting questions and providing honest answers. In a team where the members are free provide opinions on situations, progress and productivity is practically a guarantee.

• Goal orientation

In the capacity of leadership, you have to drive passion and commitment among your team members. You can achieve this by promoting goal-orientation through milestones. Break down the entirety of a project into milestones for different sections of the team to work on and make sure that roles are well understood by every individual member. When the milestones are met, appreciate the effort and introduce the next milestone.
Doing this inherently drives the competitive spirit in individuals and promotes effective and efficient work to be done. In essence, goal orientation helps you to make the team entirely productive.

• Promote co-dependency

It is also important to make sure that individual members of the team do not start experiencing dominant syndrome. When one member of the team, leader inclusive, begins to feel above everyone else, it is pretty certain that work will suffer. While independency in direct responsibility is necessary for efficiency, you should encourage team members to be co-dependent.
Co-dependency doesn’t imply that people should dump their workload on each other, just a form of workplace support for motivation. If a member is stuck on something in his/ her work, it can be addressed with the help of others and help the project move along schedule. This will encourage team bonding, improve communication and promote accountability.

• Positive reinforcement

Encouragement, appreciation, rewards and kind words ultimately go a very long way in promoting productivity and developing your skills as a leader. Practice encouraging your team members as they complete milestones by supporting their commitment, igniting their passion and being reliable to them. Positive reinforcements are simply the little ways you let the team know that you can see the effort they are putting into getting work done, you appreciate it and they can do better. It is simply being a cheerleader for your team to promote productivity in all aspects.

• Team mobilization

The last, and definitely not the least, technique for improving your leadership skills and achieving more productive results, is team mobilization. Provide constant encouragement for completed milestones, be a beam of reliability and support for your team members and mobilize their willingness to work as often as you can. Mobilizing the team is the best way to develop your leadership skills.
By showing your passion and commitment, without being obtuse and intrusive about it, you can motivate them to do more, better. When they see your active enthusiasm, passion and willingness to work, they become driven to do as well as you are doing. They begin to have thoughts along the line of, ‘if the leader can do this, what’s stopping me?’
Another important thing in team mobilization, is the fact that your work has to be authentic. The originality of your ideas is what drives the members of your team to aspire for your standard in their performance. Remember that, as a leader you are also a pacesetter.


Leadership is not a complex puzzle or rocket science. Being true to yourself, the team and the project is the core of what being a great leader is about. These techniques are just to provide a guideline for you to direct this honesty towards.
Self-awareness will develop your skills but reliability and dedication will help you to achieve all the expected results from your role as a team leader.