Leadership is a journey that has its share of ups and downs. You can probably recall glorious moments when your team aced a big project. There may also be times when your group has to rise through failures and losses. Heading a team can feel like treading a rough road as leaders continuously try various ways to tweak and improve their management styles.
For this reason, the new year is also a wonderful time for leaders. The upcoming year presents numerous opportunities to achieve more and be better! You can avoid past mistakes or hasten current progress by carefully reflecting on the things you can do to enhance or change your leadership tactics. Leaders who set their sights on growth and development can start the year right with the suggested New Year’s resolutions below.
Be more involved with your team.
As a leader, you may enjoy power and privilege to some extent. Yet when you come to think of it, a leader is nothing without a team to lead. This irony illustrates that leaders should make it a priority to connect with the people under their wing. If you hardly know anything about your staff, then you must have been leading from a distance.
This management approach can create problems such as miscommunication and poor judgment. Your staff may also find it hard to develop trust and respect for you. This is counterproductive because a research study published by Ken Blanchard Companies reveals that employees deliver better work performance if they trust their leaders. To be more involved and develop trust with your team, you can arrange social events that encourage interaction. You can also develop an open-door policy so everyone can feel free and confident to voice their sentiments or share ideas.
Be better in time-management.
Does your year-end review reveal that you failed to accomplish many of your goals because you ran out of time for it? It is a clear sign that you need to improve your time-management skills. You can examine the activities that ate up most of your time last year that also did not produce favorable results. Maybe you will realize that you have to minimize office meetings with no clear agenda or you may discover that your staff spends too much on easy, doable tasks. To prove this point, a survey done by Harvard Business Review states the majority of managers view office meetings to be inefficient. To increase productivity in the workplace, you can resolve to eliminate distractions and set strict, but reasonable deadlines for tasks.
Love your role as a leader.
Tasks and challenges appear easier when you love what you do. So as a leader, you may need to do some self-reflection to assess how passionate you are about guiding and coaching a whole team. If you see your tasks as blessings rather than burdens, you are on the right track. But if coming to work everyday feels like a struggle, you may need to change your perspective. Choosing to be grateful for the opportunity to lead is a good start. If you truly enjoy your role, you will be more productive and can lead more effectively. Moreover, your enthusiasm will radiate and positively influence your team,
The New Year is always a time for joyous celebrations because it signifies fresh hopes and new beginnings. In terms of leadership, it is possible that the past year has not been so good, but this does not matter going forward. With the new year ahead, you have a whole new chance to start over, fix things and tremendously improve. Take the first step to improvement by making the resolutions above.
