| How Do You Know Someone Has True Leadership Skills? Look for These 5 Signs By Marcel SchwantesIt’s what every employee on the planet wishes and hopes for in a boss.
Sometimes the only way you’ll truly know whether a leader’s skills are genuine is to measure the manager that made your life miserable against the one that had you thinking often, “This is too good to be true.”
If you think your boss is some freak of nature and you’re the luckiest person alive, I’ll break it to you gently: He or she is most likely the kind of leader who demonstrates best-in-class behaviors identified in the research of those leading the most profitable companies on the planet.
They are often referred to as servant leaders, conscious leaders, authentic leaders, or transformational leaders. Whatever you call them, one thing is for sure: their helm releases discretionary effort across an organization. That’s good for business.
What I have witnessed in the past ten years in my own practice developing servant leaders is that such leaders shine the spotlight on other people. They don’t want the attention, and they share their power and status to benefit the people under their care.
The secret comes down to three words: People over profit. And when that happens, companies will actually make more profit. Imagine that.
To get practical, let’s dive into the most prevalent leadership behaviors of such leaders. While there are countless leadership practices that lead to great outcomes, for this discussion, I’ll narrow it down to five:
1. They spread joy and drive fear away.
Let me ask you an honest question: Do you look forward to going to work when you get up on a Monday morning? Do you look forward to interacting with your colleagues? Do you feel appreciated by your boss because he/she takes care of you?
If you’re nodding your head yes, you probably experience joy. Congratulations! Joy is an emotion evoked by well-being and success that’s experienced by every employee in healthy cultures under great leaders.
It’s the feeling you get in a highly collaborative environment where people respect one another, where there’s real teamwork among colleagues who encourage each other, where co-workers share the same values, and there’s constant synergy in the air. Next thing you know, you look up, it’s 5:30 p.m., and the place is still buzzing with energy and excitement, and people find it hard to pull away and go home. This is joy!
And leaders create the environment for this to happen.
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