What does your LEADERSHIP TENT comprise of?

What makes a good leader? This seemingly simple question has baffled people for a long time. Generally, we all have an archetype of a wise leader in our mind who knows what to say and when to say it. On the other hand, it can be challenging to outline all the traits that constitute a good leader, even more so if you try to organize those traits into a hierarchy. Let’s attempt to list out these traits by visualizing a leadership tent and then elaborating on the elements of this tent.

 

Conceptualization of a leadership tent

The leadership tent is a visual representation of the traits and their relative importance. The two main poles that hold up a tent represent traits that every leader needs to have. Just like a tent would collapse without the main poles, so would a leader fail without these traits. The supporting poles come subsequently as they help the tent stand firm and expansive. These supporting poles are relevant as they help increase the efficacy of the leader. The leader can work on these supporting poles after establishing the key traits viz. the central poles.

 

Main/Central poles

While there are many choices for the main/ central poles of the leadership tent, we firmly believe that the most appropriate ones are Trust and Empathy. It doesn’t mean a blind type of trust. It is an inclusive type of trust like having a firm belief in the potential and capabilities of your employees and exhibiting your empathy for their struggles and challenges.

 

Trust

While modern tools allow you to keep track of your employee’s performance, it is worth noting that without trust these monitoring tools are not that effective. If you can’t put faith in your subordinates to do what they are supposed to do, no amount of monitoring tools will make your job easier. Hence, you need to innately believe that your employees want to contribute to your company and team’s success and growth. And you need to gain your employee’s trust that you won't exploit them. If you take trust away, then your leadership tent would eventually fall flat.

 

Empathy

People often undervalue the importance of empathy as a key leadership trait and therefore do not consider it as one of the main poles of a leadership tent. Empathy doesn't mean that you appreciate every sob story that your employee brings up or that you accept their illogical excuse for their lack of performance. Empathy doesn’t mean that you become agreeable to a lower standard or quality of deliverables due to their excuses or challenges.

 

Empathy means that you can put yourself in the other person's shoes and perceive from their point of view. To be an effective leader, you need to understand what your employees are going through. Being an empathetic leader will enable you to make prudent and appropriate decisions.

 

Side poles

The side poles will help to enlarge your tent and allow it to stand firm. The bigger your leadership tent, the easier it will be to house a considerable number of people with different behaviors and competencies. Let’s review some of these side poles.

 

Relationship with employees

Employees frequently look up to their leader for motivation, guidance, help, and support. If you lean too far in one direction, then you become too soft-hearted for your employees to take undue advantage of you OR you become a brutal-hearted tyrant with no consideration for your employee’s state of well-being. Both extremes lead to an unproductive work environment and therefore you need to be self-aware and realize what kind of a relationship you are building with your employees. You'll be able to lead your employees and help them be the best versions of themselves if you can focus on these side poles:

 

• Empowerment
• Emotional regulation
• Mentoring
• Growth mindset
• Accountability

 

Relationships between employees

A good leader helps their employees to align, reduce friction, and work together as a team. This ability to foster collaboration is a crucial trait for all effective leaders. This comprises various side poles such as:

 

• Encouraging participation
• Recognition
• Emotional agility
• Delegation
• Mediation

It is critical to acknowledge the importance of tackling intrapersonal issues that your employees may be experiencing.

 

While modern tools like MoversTech CRM can help you understand your customers, you need to get a feel for your employees in order to enable team cohesion.

 

How to build a solid tent

No leadership tent can stand if it doesn't have sturdy main poles. Once you have stability with the main poles, choose a few side poles that you find relatively easier to build upon and further improve. Effective leaders recognize and choose those side poles that they have a stronger grip on and those that could be further fortified. In turn, this helps them find employees that can assist with fortifying the side poles and provide complementary strengths to their own natural leadership traits.

 

Culture is the fabric

Finally, you wrap a strong cover fabric over these poles. This is your overarching culture that covers and protects the well-being of your people. It provides the safety net and the space for your team members to function and thrive in their roles.