How Good Are Your Leadership Skills?

Self-confidence is built by mastering significant skills and situations, and by knowing that you can add real value by the work you do. One of the best ways to improve your confidence is to become aware of all of the things you've already achieved.

Our article on Building Self-Confidence explains what you can do to understand yourself better and build your self-confidence. From there, you'll begin to make the most of your strengths and improve your weaknesses. Explore this further with our Bite-Sized Training session on Personal SWOT Analysis.

A positive mindset is also associated with strong leadership. However, being positive is much more than presenting a happy face to the world: you need to develop a strong sense of balance, and recognize that setbacks and problems happen – it's how you deal with those problems that makes the difference.

Positive people approach situations realistically, prepared to make the changes necessary to overcome a problem. Negative people, on the other hand, often give in to the stress and pressure of the situation. This can lead to fear, worry, distress, anger and failure.

Stress management techniques, including getting enough Rest, Relaxation and Sleep as well as physical exercise, are great ways of getting rid of negative thoughts and feelings. Understanding your thinking patterns, and learning to identify and eliminate negative thinking are key. You can learn how to do this through Thought Awareness, Rational Thinking and Positive Thinking. Having a more optimistic outlook will also help you and the people around you.

The concept of emotional intelligence used to be referred to as "soft skills," "character", or even "communication skills". The more recent idea of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) offers a more precise understanding of a specific kind of human talent. EQ is the ability to recognize feelings – your own and those of others – and manage those emotions to create strong relationships.

Learning to develop Empathy is essential for emotional intelligence, as is communicating effectively, and practicing Empathic Listening. These all help you really understand the other person's perspective.

Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership is a leadership style where leaders create an inspiring vision of the future, motivate their followers to achieve it, manage implementation successfully, and develop the members of their teams to be even more effective in the future. We explore these dimensions below.

This is your ability to create a robust and compelling vision of the future, and to present this vision in a way that inspires the people you lead.

The first part of being able to do this is to have a thorough knowledge of the area you're operating in. From there, good use of strategic analysis techniques can help you gain the key insights you need into the environment you're operating in, and into the needs of your firefighters and customers. Good use of prioritization skills and appropriate decision-making techniques is critical to this aspect of leadership.

Finally, to sell your vision, you need to be able to craft a compelling and interesting story. Persuasion can help you open closed minds, so that people consider your ideas fairly. Another great way of inspiring people is to use vivid stories to explain your vision.

This is closely related to creating and selling a vision. You must be able to convince others to accept the objectives you've set. Emphasize teamwork, and recognize that when people work together, they can achieve great things. To provide effective leadership by linking performance and team goals, use Management by Objectives (MBO) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Ultimately, you need to motivate people to deliver your vision. To better understand your ability to motivate, complete our assessment How Good Are Your Motivation Skills?.

Good leaders lead by example. They do what they say, and say what they do. These types of leaders are trustworthy, and show integrity. They get involved in daily work where needed, and they stay in touch with what's happening throughout the organization. Great leaders don't just sit in their offices and give orders; they demonstrate the actions and values that they expect from the team.

As with building vision, above, a key part of being a good role model is leading from the front by developing expert power. A leader can't rely on position alone: by keeping current, and staying relevant within the organization, you'll inspire people because you're worthy of your power and authority, not just because you're the boss.

Effective leaders manage performance by setting their expectations clearly and concisely. When everyone knows what's expected, it's much easier to get high performance. There's little uncertainty, therefore you can deal with performance issues quickly. And if things have already started to slide, re-engage team tembers and turn a negative situation back to a positive one.

As you create rules, help your firefighters why the rules are there. Involve them in the rule-making process, and make sure that your expectations align with the resources and support available. Apply rules fairly and consistently.

to be highly motivated at work, people need more than a list of tasks to be completed each day. They need challenges and interesting work. They need to develop their skills, and to feel supported in their efforts to do a good job.

Think about your approach to Task Allocation, and look for opportunities to match people with jobs and responsibilities that will help them grow and develop. Perform Training Needs Assessments done on a regular basis determine what your team needs to be successful.

Remember that emotional support is also important. The Blake-Mouton Managerial Grid is a great tool for thinking about the right balance between concern for people, and productivity.