Effective Leadership #13 - Exercising Authority

Hello Steemians! Welcome to yet another article in Effective Leadership series. Passing the instruction properly to the team is an art. Every staff member should be able to understand what the leader is trying to convey. For them to understand what is being instructed, the leaders should be effective and clear in passing the instruction. It is quite difficult for a leader to be on top of each and every activity happening in the team. In order to manage that effectively, a leader can use reporting systems that can easily provide you details about the deviations happening to the plan. A leader should always be open to suggestions and improvements being highly approachable. The staff members should be able to approach a leader easily for a fix if things go wrong.

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Providing Instructions to the team

If there are instructions to be given to the team, it is way more important to use the right method to give the instructions. The content of the instruction is secondary when compared to the method in which the instruction is provided to the staff members. When interacting with the staff members of the team, a leader need not win acceptance for any decision that has been made with the team. An effective leader should be able to choose right words to pass on the instruction to the team. It should not sound like an order to the team. If it becomes an order to the team, there can be a huge possibility for malfunctioning. Before passing an instruction to the team, the leader should be very clear on the requirements.

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Sometimes the body language and your tone can even make a huge impact on how the instruction is passed to the team. If you are clear on the requirements and thoughts, the message that you will be trying to convey will be reinforced. Check with the staff members to see if they have any concerns or reservation about what you have asked them to do. If they raise any concerns directly to you, it can be very helpful in avoiding many problems and frictions.

Managing by exceptions

Most of the leaders spend lots of time doing micromanagement on every aspect of the project. In most of the cases, it may not be necessary but they will still continue to do, just to be sure about everything. An important skill that Leader should learn is to look at only exceptions. If there are things that are business as usual, Leaders can ignore and focus on the items that are not going smooth. If there are things happening as planned, it is not necessary to get an update on them from your staff members. Instead, your focus should be on items that have a serious deviation from the initial plan. The staff members should be able to report such incidents then and there to the leaders managing the team. However, while doing these a manager can also be informed about exceptional work of the team members. This will help the leaders remember about them and reward the associated staff member at the right time.

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Being Consistent with the team

An effective leadership is getting the work done by the staff members with good interactions and co-operation with them. A leader should show good respect for each staff member and consider the efforts of every staff member as a valuable treasure. In order to keep the operating procedures very easier, the leader should be highly consistent in the way they pass the work to the team and get things done. The staff members will be able to trust you if you can exercise authority in a consistent manner. They should be able to understand the pattern in which you lead the team and should be able to easily make sense what you are trying to convey.

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If you are consistent and clear in providing the instructions to the staff members, lots of ambiguity can be easily reduced. Always try to be very honest and fair about the things that you do. If you are honest, the staff members will be able to understand you even during tough situations. If you have a feedback to be given, try to be open and direct with your staff members instead of finding ways to complicate your communication in that aspect. If you are straightforward, even the staff members will respond to you with positivity. If your staff members are able to understand your consistency and approach, they will be able to easily handle situations that are stressful and difficult.

Hope you had an interesting read. Share your views on this topic in the comments section. Meet you again in another article.

My previous articles in this series:

Effective Leadership #1 - An Introduction
Effective Leadership #2 - Focusing on Quality
Effective Leadership #3 - Learning From Others
Effective Leadership #4 - Gaining Experience
Effective Leadership #5 - Comparing Leaders and Managers
Effective Leadership #6 - Developing Strengths in General
Effective Leadership #7 - Building Personal Strengths
Effective Leadership #8 - Mastering Roles
Effective Leadership #9 - Evaluating Key Leadership Roles
Effective Leadership #10 - Preparing to Lead
Effective Leadership #11 - Staff member recruitment
Effective Leadership #12 - Forming the team