Being an Effective Leader: Literature Review

Introduction

How to be an effective leader? Leadership is not management or instruction. Leadership is the ability to inspire or influence others towards the leader’s goal and a real leader have followers. If someone has followers, then he or she is a successful leader. Besides that, must be a real leader. A successful leader must make his or her followers believe that they are a team or family, not only the relationship between leader and subordinates only. If they have confidence in you and be your followers that is the successful beginning of the goal. However, an effective leader is someone who establishes a clear vision. Furthermore, leader should also be able to educate his subordinates since they have the ability to work independently. Next, for businesspeople, one of the important things have to worry about is to inspire people or influence others towards the leader’s goal. Now, here are some methods to make tasks easier and how to be an effective leader such as positive attitude, self-assessment and be fully prepared.

  Bee Kai Ying, 1507526

First: An effective leader must have positive attitude

Firstly, positive attitude is important for a leader. A great leader is able to control their emotion well. They would not bring negative emotion to work. This is because they know these emotions can affect others especially people in leadership position. For example, when facing a problem that are not expected, from ability to stay clam can bring confidence to team members and prevent other team members feeling confuse. Moreover, a good leader will seek advice from team member without caring their position. Besides that, a positive thinker will not be jealous others’ ability and are willing to learn from them. Positive thinker’s team can improve a lot. For example, a positive thinking team will treat a difficult situation as a chance to show their ability while a negative thinking team will not because they are worry for failure. Even when positive thinker fail in the challenges but they can quickly overcome failure and accept the challenges again. They will not stop because of the failure but will improve because of learning the failure and never give up. At last, positive thinking not only affected the leader themselves but will also affected the team members and encourage the team toward their personal or team goals.

         Wong Chung Hing ,1507484

Second: Effective leaders own self-assessment

Self-assessment is the process for leaders to evaluate their performances, behaviours and have better understanding on their strengths and weaknesses. As a result of owning self-assessment skill, they are able to work on their limitations and improve their abilities including confidence, communication skill and team-building skill as an effective leader. Moreover, leaders are able to hire the subordinates or team-mates who complement him on his insignificance. There are some tools and techniques have been prepared for self-assessment and one of the most famous tool is Leadership Steps Assessment (LSA) (James G. Clawson, 1999). By using LSA, one can learn on clarifying one self’s centre, what’s possible and what others can contribute, supporting others, being relentless as well as celebrating progress. In addition, leader should always know the perception of people on him. He may request the people to comment on his best and worst qualities and eventually improve the best qualities while getting rid of the worst qualities. Last but not least, leader who own self-assessment will learn from their mistakes once they realize their errors. They will face the mistakes and take the responsibility to overcome them.

           Chong Yee Lee 150784

Third: be an effective leader must have fully preparation

To become an effective leader one must prepare yourself to lead well before you do anything. First, make a list of everything you need to do. Opportunities are often the beginning of the great cause when you are ready to welcome the opportunity, better than have a chance and you are not prepared yourself. When leaders fail it is due to lack of preparation. Next, the leader never stopped being accountable to yourself and others. You can’t expect subordinates to perform better if they are not prepared to successfully deliver what you expect from them. Because the things you express to subordinates and what their receive of the ideas is different. Being prepared for the unexpected is your accountable. For example, when the leader demands more from subordinates, enforcement of pressure rises so does the pressure guides subordinates rightly done their own position job. At the same times, improve the performance of the standards for the leader you will notice that preparation become a major measure of success. A leader needs to brush up yourself, such as invest in your own skill sets and capabilities to improve your solution to problem-solving. The preparation does not guarantee success, but the lack of preparation can certainly happen your tendency to failure.

      Lee Chi San, 1508085

Conclusion

Last but not least, a great leader is a person who must have positive attitude, self-assessment, and be fully prepared. First, an effective leader should be able to fully prepared. When a leader has fully prepared before doing anything, it will help to decrease the rate of failure of the goal. For example, a leader should prepare or provide a vision for where the company is heading in such a way that people can buy into that vision. Secondly, leader must have own self-assessment. For example, leader will learn from their mistakes towards the goals. It will win the heart of the people you are leading and the possibilities are endless. Thirdly, leader also should have positive attitudes. Effective leaders inspire you and influence others all their thoughts, words and actions are charged. They look inside and bring the best of you to the surface.For example, a leader must be a positive thinker, good example and good mirror in front of people, because it can inspire people towards the goal. In short, a successful leader can lead all subordinates together to achieve the goal and let all subordinates voluntarily follow from the start to the end. This is what an effective leader must have.

    1507526, Bee Kai Ying