Developing your leadership voice.
Effective communication / Confidence / Leadership: ability to inspire, and team building / Accountability / Decisiveness and Decision Making/ Emotional intelligence: empathy, positivity, safety / Vision / Time Management and Focus.
As we look at this list of 8 essential leadership skills, half of them are directly related to your leadership ability to communicate as a leader and your leadership voice. Thus it’s easy to see how critical a leadership voice is in our list of must-have leadership skills. Will you be a good leader or a great leader? Your leadership quality depends hugely on your leadership style and communication skills. Effective leadership begins with effective communication!
Your leadership voice is not your tone of voice or the volume you project. We are speaking about your leadership ability and communication style. As we talk about finding your voice as a leader, we mean finding the concepts representing your core values and overall vision. Once you’ve done this, you build your communication style. You’ve found your leadership voice.
Being able to communicate your values to the team impacts how they view you as an effective leader. Finding your voice helps heighten employee engagement and build team confidence and morale. Your words will inspire innovation in your organization and guide it to new levels of success. The most effective leadership skill you’ll have is understanding your leadership voice. Good leadership begins with excellent communication, often that needs to be learned.
Congratulations! Whether you’ve chosen or been placed into the role of managing, supervising, or leading others, you now are in the decision-making world of leadership. Suppose this was a willful decision on your behalf. In that case, you must have contemplated what life might be like in that space. Likely you’ve taken time to reflect on the company’s vision, the types of decisions you’ll make, your leadership style, or the range of influence you’ll have for your organization. Now the question becomes, how do you assert your voice and make yourself heard among your team?
Contrariwise, suppose you were assigned that role. In that case, the learning curve must accelerate quickly, and the best place to start is discovering your leadership voice. Yet, your question is the same; how do you assert your voice and make yourself heard among your team?
The answer is finding your leadership voice.
It’s time to assemble your leadership development style. Much of what you’ll experience in managing and supervising is on the fly. Moreover, there will absolutely be moments where it feels as though you are building the plane as you fly it. You will succeed, and you will make mistakes – all of us have. Strong leadership involves learning from your mistakes and moving on with confidence and resolve.
If you want to be a great leader, your most important leadership skills are finding confidence, understanding your leadership style, and learning the technical skills behind solid communication. We are all different people. Thus our communication styles are different for all of us. The foremost part of what makes a good leader is discovering how you best relay what you need from your team. You’ll learn to deliver your message in a concise, accountable, and empathetic way.
To evolve as an emerging leader means change. Once we’ve arrived at a place of leadership, we have a tendency to behave like the previous manager. That is a trap! Please don’t fall for it. You are a unique person. Ordinarily, personal leadership starts at the very core of who you are. As a business leader and team builder, you’ll need to find your path and your own voice. First, find confidence in being yourself. Find your Voice.
The first step in this process is a topic known as Self-Awareness. Self-awareness is exploring yourself on a deeper level. For example, you’ll ask yourself critical questions to understand how you think about your thinking process. This process is called metacognition. With this practice, you’ll learn about yourself, as well as the people and experiences that helped shape your thoughts. Similarly, you discover the values you embrace and the behaviors you’re likely to display.
Beginning to grasp an understanding of yourself will challenge you to think more critically about your leadership style platform and management skills. Furthermore, it sets the stage for your effective communication style to emerge. Next, you’ll begin to find your confidence and no longer feel as though you’re just playing the role. You’ll own your part in leadership.
1. A Strong Leader Asks Questions
More often than not, we’re shy to ask questions because they make us feel as though we’re not competent. Contrariwise, getting all the facts helps us to be better leaders. Learn to ask questions and get clarification on your ideas. By doing so, you’ll take the guesswork out of the equation. Further, you eliminate any confusion and have more confidence in your decision-making.
2. Personal Leadership and Reflection – Unpacking Your History
Think of the people who helped to shape your perspectives on leadership. Who were they? What did they value? Moreover, what behaviors did they display? Or, was there something that made you want to gravitate toward their presence? When you can genuinely understand that perspective, you’ll have a deeper understanding of why you do what you do and how you do it that way.
3. Find a Mentor to be Your Visionary Leader
There are times in leadership when you will absolutely “knock it out of the park.” Conversely, understand that you’ll also fall short at times. It’s ok. Having a mentor gives you someone to look up to. It also provides a chance for you to learn and grow in both of these moments. Your mentor should be someone who has ‘walked the walk’ and offers you their wisdom along the way. As a successful leader, they don’t need to be in your specific industry, but they should reflect your aspirations. By seeing yourself in your mentor’s shoes, you’ll pick yourself up after a fall and move forward with renewed confidence.
4. To be a Better Leader, Begin Reading More
If you haven’t started to assemble a leadership library, start today! Find topics and resources that offer you a daily boost to your knowledge and skills. Leaders are voracious readers. In other words, they consume immense amounts of material because they are curious. A true leader always strives to be the best in their field, which means keeping up to date. No need to start complex – start small and boost your knowledge daily. For instance, consider books on tape, daily affirmations sent to you through an app, and blog posts. The key is to start!
5. Becoming Immensely Curious is a Superior Leadership Trait
Think of a time in your life when you discovered something new. Likely, you immediately became excited and very curious to learn more. Now, take that disposition and apply it to leadership. An immensely curious leader is also an inquiry minded business leader. They are one who crafts the skill of asking great questions and intentionally design moments of learning for themselves and their teams every day. They also quickly apply strategic thinking to their leadership position.
Furthermore, your team needs to see that you encourage insightful questions and do not have all the answers. Ingenuity and creativity spark innovation.
First, you begin with your team. You’ll work through conflict with an assertive disposition. Furthermore, hold yourself and others accountable and set reasonable and achievable goals for yourself and your team.
Second, remember to manage your time effectively. Letting your team see effective time management increases their confidence in your abilities and keeps you on track of everything. Presenting your clarity and focus guides your team to stay on the most important priorities at hand. Establish your platform now, and you’ll become more efficient in every area of your role.
Finally, future leaders uphold the company’s vision and work to express that idea to their team. Through good communication, you’ll present the vision and encourage the team to support the concept. Besides increasing company morale and longevity, strong leadership inspires the team to be a part of the company.
To learn more about leadership skills, click through to our online classes platform, and take the Discovering Your Leadership Voice course! You’ll learn the communication skills, effective leadership strategies, and tools to obtain high-performance results. Additionally, with this class, you’ll get the specific leadership skills that provide the impact you desire in your transformational leadership journey. Take the step, start now – you’re worth it. Strong leadership skills – this way!
