Being a Good Boss and a Highly-Effective Leader

by John Keyser

Surveys reveal that more than half of the people working in business do not feel:

• Appreciated
• Heard, that their ideas matter
• That they have a productive working relationship with their boss
• Fully engaged or aligned

And in my work as a leadership consultant and coach, it sure seems that morale in business is low, really low.

With this post, I hope to inspire bosses who should be striving to be highly-effective leaders, to help them think about what they can do to bring positive energy to their teams.

First and foremost, we need to have an attitude of service. Do we understand that as a leader we must serve our people? That’s right, serve. Our goal is to produce results through the combined efforts and good work of our team members. We must help them learn, grow and succeed to achieve this goal.

Second, we cannot be self-absorbed. No, instead we must have humility coupled with inner-confidence, which enables us to want to encourage, help, coach, and root for others to succeed.

That is our responsibility! We must be about our team.

Third, success in business is about the quantity and quality of our relationships, including with our co-workers. These relationships must be genuine – and earned continuously, on an ongoing basis.

If we are truly servant leaders, put helping others first and cultivate relationships, our team members will be engaged, aligned and happy, and we’ll likely enjoy outstanding results.

To put these ideals into practice, we should aim to:

• Treat everyone as teammates, not staff
• Have conversations with our team members
• Ask for advice, ideas and feedback
• Listen attentively to understand and learn
• Let our team members realize we genuinely care about their success
• Let our team members know, with clarity, our expectations of them
• Ask our team members what they need and want from us as their leader
• Whenever appropriate, be inclusive in decision making and seek input from others

I could go on and on about good practices and I know you could, as well.

We can all be highly-effective leaders if we embody the right attitude and practices and if we free up time to be out with our team members, asking questions, listening attentively and encouraging and helping them.

Making more time to engage with our team members means that we must spend a lot less time in front of our computers and in meetings.

If you figure out how to free yourself up, you’re made a giant step towards being a highly effective leader!

I would love people who read this paper to share their ideas about their challenges and good practices, and I, in turn, will collect and share them back to everyone. Just email me at john@johnkeysercoach.com.

Thanks. I hope this is helpful. It is so very important!