5 SIGNS YOU’RE READY FOR LEADERSHIP
Have you always envisioned yourself being a leader one day? But how do you know you’re ready?
Leadership is less about your desire to lead, but more about how your leadership will impact other people. Only 48% of employees view their company’s leadership as “high quality” (Zippia) and poor leadership can lead to low morale, unproductivity, and eventually turnover.
So, keep reading to see if you’re ready to take that next step.
YOU’RE CALM UNDER PRESSURE
Being a manager is a lot. Not just because of your own workload but because you’re responsible for other people as well as yourself. As a result, lots of situations will come up where you’ll need to make smart decisions, whilst staying calm and mature.
Maybe bosses acknowledge you for your calm yet thoughtful nature, or team members tend to come to you for advice on how to handle things – these could be signs you’re ready to take on the role of leadership.
YOU’RE GOOD AT GIVING CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM
Giving feedback is sometimes an everyday occurrence as a manager, and to be blunt – it won’t always be positive. You’ll have employees that make mistakes, need to work on certain approaches, or even do things that would need disciplinary action.
Identifying what someone did wrong is easy, but telling them in a constructive way isn’t. Good leaders understand that feedback isn’t just about aiming to identify a problem, but about providing advice and suggestions that are useful and motivating.
But this requires patience and also self-awareness. If you get frustrated easily by people’s mistakes and find it hard to turn a bad situation around, people may leave chats with you feeling deflated and insecure rather than aware and motivated to do better.
A team that is held accountable whilst being equipped with ways to improve is a team that succeeds, and as a manager – their success is your priority.
YOU’RE GOOD AT RECEIVING CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM
In order to be a leader – you have to be led.
Being able to take feedback, learn from it, and improve is a crucial way to develop your skills, people management, and business acumen. Managers may feel uneasy about promoting you to a leadership level if you get easily defensive about things you need to work on because it shows signs of arrogance and you can’t improve by being arrogant.
As a leader, you’ll need to be open to change just as much as your employees are because only then will you grow to understand your team, yourself, and your business.
YOU ALLOW FOR CREATIVITY AND CONTRIBUTIONS
I wrote an article back in 2022 about becoming a better leader and I touched on the 3 types of leaders. Of which were authoritarian leaders. They are:
Extremely independent, taking little to no input from the rest of the group
Usually viewed as controlling, bossy, and dictatorial
Wanting to control everything about the work environment can leave your employees feeling uninspired because they’re unable to make suggestions, be creative, and feel like they’re contributing to something big.
A good leader knows that their employees are their greatest asset. Although they have more authority, they are aware of their employees’ strengths and that, together, they can achieve something amazing.
If you’re a team player, love hearing ideas from others, and acknowledge that without your team, the company wouldn’t flourish – you’re on the right track to leadership.
Employees will be full of inspiration because they feel valued under your management.
PEOPLE LOOK UP TO YOU
Just because you’re not a manager, people can still look up to you. Whether it’s your determination, how you approach business, or how you treat others, leadership doesn’t start when you get a promotion, leadership starts from a natural desire to go above and beyond for your company and the people in it.
Sometimes it’s not just about how good you are at your job, but how good you are at caring about other people’s jobs. You could always be promoted to specialise in your field and focus on your own work, but in order to be a leader, you have to act like one.
- Written by Oliver Howson
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