Dr. Rana Singh, Vice- Chancellor, Sanskriti University

Leaders become great in their life by displaying their positive nature as well as their appreciable qualities which make their followers believe in their vision, actions, and steps. All the great leaders know how to balance between their personal and professional lives. They also focus on being well-planned in personal and professional life and are always focused on meticulous execution of their plan. The young generation of the modern era wants to achieve many things but is unable to put their efforts in the right direction. Some of them do not have the required qualities needed to become effective leaders. They need to analyze the required gaps in their personality and inculcate within them the required leadership qualities.

The new start-up companies sometimes grow to a peak level that they emerge among the world’s best organizations and sometimes they struggle to fight for survival/existence in the market.  This majorly is attributed to the leaders and the leadership style by the senior leadership which owns the business. Therefore, at the back of every successful business, there are exceptional qualities and optimal blend of human, technical and conceptual skills in the leaders who stand alone to run the business in the market and the effective leadership qualities make others support their decisions. 

In making our country grow effectively at national and global levels, aspiring leaders must have great leadership qualities to make the lives of people around them happy, satisfied and delighted. Therefore for becoming a great leader, you need to possess strong leadership qualities in your daily life which are as follows:

Confidence:

For being a good leader you must possess confidence in your talk as well as work that makes others follow the steps, which will be only possible through your courage. Being a confident person, you can easily tackle the problems alone and should be willing to take the risk on your own for the achievement of the envisioned goals of the organization. Whenever there is a meeting or new contract deal, your way of presentation of plans and strategies of the organizations will convince the counterparties.  The confidence will be communicated by the boldness in your preparation, and this action makes other stakeholders believe and trust in qualitative and quantitative dimensions of your work.

Execution Skills:

The skills to execute the plans with the best strategies make the leader different from others. Strategic planning and operational plans can be accomplished by the best and focused execution skills. Leaders are required to have specialized skills of executing the plans by concerted and collaborative efforts of all internal and external stakeholders.  This is another important quality of leadership strengths. The greatest aspects of the successful person are to envision the results before executing them, based on the market trends or evaluation of the economy, industry and allied aspects. In this pandemic situation where the economy is drastically getting worse, the leader with execution qualities can manage this situation and convert the situation of problem into an opportunity. Execution skills differentiate the leader from all others. 

Effective Communication Skills:

Another trait of the best leaders is to communicate effectively and persuasively if talking in front of a large number of internal or external stakeholders. The leaders who have fear of public speaking should get rid of this fear or anxiety at the earliest by consistent practice. The written and verbal communication of the leaders makes a phenomenal difference in motivating and retaining competent and skilled professionals in modern times. Leaders are required to focus on their quality of communication for achieving and sustaining the success of the organization.

The quality of being a good communicator will always make you develop good relations among business professionals, subordinates, colleagues, etc. It is said if you can’t express your inner thoughts in front of people in your organization, you can never build a great team. Communication is developed by consistent exchange of verbal or non-verbal ideas and information among all groups of internal and external stakeholders.

Clear Vision:

Being a leader, clarity of vision must be there which is fruitful for the company’s growth and future. The leader is expected to focus on preparing the vision, mission, goals and objectives of the organization which will lead the people towards enhanced levels of productivity and profits for the organization. The leaders are expected to be confident, optimistic, motivated, enthusiastic, and be an unending source of inspiration for the employees. If you are thinking of making the changes in your surrounding atmosphere,  the vision, mission, goals and objectives of the organization must be clear, along with the envisioned ultimate results to be achieved with the concerted efforts and why the change is required.

As we know, an empty mind is considered to be the devil’s workshop; therefore the leader is expected to engage the empty minds in meaningful works and assignments with focus on creativity and innovation. The leader is expected to be clear about the need, choice, and essential actions in life. Sometimes our mind is stuffed with a lot of thoughts and imagination without knowing what to stop and take our mind away from distraction. Therefore, clarity in the vision, mission, goals and objectives will give the path to think about the future goals and actions to be taken. 

Learning:

“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” If a leader is not aware of the surroundings and is not updated with the new topics, many things may go out of control. It requires learning about the new technologies, issues, topics, culture/arts, places, books, etc., to make his/her personality strong and better.

Great leaders always know about their strength of leadership qualities, and have the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and have the optimal blend of knowledge, skills and competencies to work smartly and grasp the opportunities in changing times and circumstances. Having a desire to learn new things will always make the leader develop social and emotional intelligence which will contribute to decision making as a leader.

Also read: EMBA: Sharpen your leadership and decision-making skills