5 Leadership's Gold Nuggets!

Most if not all, will be a leader one day. Either you be a team leader in your workplace, a department manager that lead the whole department, or a leader at home.

I'd been a project leader before when I was in the engineering field. It ain't easy to lead a project as you are mostly handling people rather than the project itself. As of now in the finance industry, I learn with many leaders from the different agencies. It's really a privilege to learn from leaders to manage a team again.

Below is 5 pieces of gold nuggets that I find it useful for a role as a leader.

DON'T PUNISH!

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I personally think that for my and the coming generation, punishing won't bring any good and will only bring harm. As a leader or a teacher, by punishing people who are not "in line" with you will end up building a team of "YES MAN". People indirectly dare not voice out ideas and will end up just agreeing with what leaders say. It could help to flatter the leaders' ego but nope, it is not helping the team/management as a whole.

COMPLAINTS CAN BE GOOD!

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Of course, not all complaints are good. As a leader, learn to identify 'helpful' complaints. Come to think of it, when people complain, or I should use the term 'voice out', this means that people care about something that they want to see change in. In situation like this, when people stop complaining, it can be either they are happy with how things go OR they could have probably lost interest and passion in what they do. Ask yourself this, when you 'voice out', what is the reason for you to do so? Hoping that things can be better? Or purely because you hate your leader? Oops...

LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN

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Always be a good listener. I think being a good listener is useful even for non-leaders. Not just listen to reply, but to listen and understand people's concerns. I'd came across leaders that listen just to interrupt! Interrupt to reply, interrupt to say that they are always right and you are always wrong. Then it will again cause people to not dare to voice out. When people stop voicing out and thinking that you don't even bother to know their problems, that's it. That could be the end of your leader position in their eyes. Learn to listen until they finish. Probe further, make your people to voice out willingly. That's where the defensive wall goes down and they are more opened to listen to you.

PRAISE!

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Eh, most people love to be praised. Don't tell me you don't love it. Don't try to cheat me... because I know sometimes when we are praised, we paiseh and say "aiya, it's nothing la" or "aiseh, no big deal la". Eh, in your heart damn syok right? Being a leader, don't be the one that take all the credit for your team's work. Always praise them even if they say you don't need to. Actually deep inside them they will feel appreciated when they are being praised. Unknowingly you are making them proud to actually do something good for the team. Just a simple effortless statement like "Eh, this month you'd improved" can actually motivate them to perform better.

WELCOME MISTAKES!

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Denion, you sure what you are writing or not? Encouraging leaders to allow their people to make mistakes? C'mon!

You hear me right! Allowing people to make mistakes and allowing people to repeat the same mistakes are two different thing. I think I understand this more after I become a father 2 years back. Believe it or not, a person actually learn the most and the fastest through mistakes.

I allow my daughter to make mistakes but if she is repeating the same mistakes again and again, at least I can remind her of the consequences that she experienced through the mistakes she had done. See, everything is self explanatory and all I need to do is to only remind her of the mistakes she had done and the consequences she faced.

When people make mistakes, as a leader, just step in, do some correction, people will automatically be opened and learnt something. Apply this to the people you are working with and this will make your leadership easy. ;)

LIFETIME LEARNING

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Leadership is a lifetime learning. People change so do leadership. There is no one fixed way to lead people. Whatever I write may not be 100% correct but I hope you will find it useful. All you need to do is applied some of it and tweak based on you yourself and also the people that is under your lead. Most importantly is that you see yourself as a leader that many want to follow! When people are willing to follow you, from there you will know whether you are a good leader or not.