The title, “Leadership” as an entrepreneur, is not all about the big fancy name. It is rather about possessing the right qualities that will make your employees follow your directions. Every entrepreneur needs to possess strong leadership skills. You can’t be a great entrepreneur without proper Leadership skills.
People who have built great businesses across the globe, including Nigeria, mastered the art of good Leadership skills. As a Nigerian entrepreneur, there is a great need to develop Leadership skills. Because to be an effective leader and ensure the smooth running of the company, you must know how to relate with your employees. Including those undergoing some challenges both within and outside the workplace.
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Why Entrepreneurs Need Leadership Skills
Entrepreneurs need to possess Leadership skills because it is the primary key to the success of a business. It helps you consciously put your employees in the right roles that will allow you to perform well and succeed. These leaders know that the success of their employees will ultimately translate to the success of the organization.
Also, Nigerian entrepreneurs need to develop their leadership skills, because it helps to make communication clear and effective. Communication is a core leadership skill you shouldn’t toy with. Proper communication in a workplace fosters transparency and builds trust in relationships. Open and honest communication with the team is very important. Entrepreneurs need to build their leadership skills because it helps provide a clear vision.
One proven method that can bring out the best in the members of a team is when the leader encourages and appreciates his/her staff for a job well done. This act automatically empowers them to always give their best to any task you give to them.
Definition of Leadership in Entrepreneurship
The theory of leadership is based on the principle that effective leaders are those who aren’t satisfied with present conditions and have a vision of how things should be and a plan of how to get there. As an entrepreneur, you must have a vision of what your business should be or what it needs to succeed. Plus, a clear plan of how to accomplish it. With the right leadership skills, you will be able to navigate through the hurdles and also see your desired plan come to fruition.
Why Leadership Skills are Important in a Workplace
Leadership skills are very important in a workplace because when a leader possesses the right skills, it helps to provide focus in the organization and push the team forward. A leadership skill can help provide focus in the organization by simply defining goals and explaining objectives so that every member of the team can clearly understand the end goal they are working to achieve. The leader also tries to check on the progress of every member of the team and helps to resolve any issue they are faced with before it escalates into bigger problems.
Another reason why Leadership skills are so important in a workplace is that it empowers and motivates team members to work at their full potential. An effective leader to a great extent knows the capability of each member in the team, so he assigns to you a task according to their strengths. When this is done, it automatically motivates each to bring out their full potential, because they were given a task according to their capabilities.
Leadership skills are important because it helps in the decision making in the organization. For instance, when the team is unable to choose between multiple decisions, the leader steps in knowing fully well his importance in the organization and makes a decision for the whole team members, so it does not slow progress.
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Examples of Leadership Skills
There are lots of Leadership Skills, but I will list only 5 of them here
- Effective Communication
- Problem Solving
- Conflict Resolution
- Creativity
- People Management
10 Ways to Start Building Your Leadership Skills in Nigeria
There are different ways Nigerian entrepreneurs can start building their Leadership skills, which include;
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Practice discipline
A good leader needs to be very disciplined to lead effectively. This is because it inspires others to be disciplined as well. You can demonstrate discipline in the following ways;
- Keeping to time
- Meeting Deadline
- Arriving to work on time and so on.
People will judge your ability to lead by the amount of discipline you display at work.
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Be a discerning listener
This skill has two keywords embedded in it. They are “discerning” and “Listener”. It is an essential skill to be a leader that listens. However, a discerning listener will be awesome because you will be able to listen to ideas and feedback and know which of them is to be implemented for the growth of the organization.
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Resolve conflicts
Conflict is inevitable in the workplace. Don’t be a leader who shies away when there is conflict. Instead, you should seek means to address it by talking to the parties involved. Also, be open to reassigning team members if the conflict can’t be resolved. Your ability to resolve conflict often will always bring about peaceful co-existence in the workplace.
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Be open to suggestions
The best path to becoming a good leader is to be open to inputs and suggestions. You have to be humble as a leader to be able to learn from your employees. Learning new things keeps your mind sharp and your skills fresh.
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Be a follower
A true leader has no problem yielding control to another person when appropriate. A leader should not feel threatened when someone disagrees with him or her, rather a leader should keep an open mind and give merit where merit is due.
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Take on more projects
A great way to develop leadership skills is to take on more responsibility. You don’t have to necessarily take on more than what you can handle, but you need to do more than simply what’s covered in your job description if you want to grow. One of the greatest ways to learn anything is to step out of your comfort zone.
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Honestly assess yourself
You have to be as honest as possible when doing this. Spot your weaknesses and address them to be able to maintain good leadership. You may even opt to ask others you can trust to give you their opinions on your leadership skills and do the necessary adjustments where needed.
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Be passionate
Passion is everything in leadership. No employee wants to seek counsel from a leader who doesn’t care about the topic as much as they do. When you display passion as a leader, it will rub off on your employees which will therefore motivate you to keep working to achieve their goals. Employees respond to those who are eager to help you learn and grow.
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Inspire others
People respect a leader who walks the walk and talks the talk. Characteristics of transformational leaders are the ability to inspire others. You won’t accomplish much if you don’t inspire others to take action. One of the most powerful examples of leadership skills is showing those around you exactly what you will like to see you do.
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Set concrete goals and execute them
When you are developing leadership skills, invest time in clarifying your goals and solidifying yourself. Once you achieve a particular goal, look towards another, and strive to meet the next benchmark. This will give you and your employees a sense of meaning and pride.
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Conclusion
Possessing these skills above-mentioned is very important and helpful because when you possess these skills as a leader, you can dictate the atmosphere and energy in your working environment. The culture in the workplace is shaped by what the leader consistently does. These Leadership skills will help the leader to develop and empower the people through coaching. The Leader gets to coach and empowers the team to succeed. It also helps the leader to have and deploy emotional intelligence, especially empathy. When there is empathy, the leader can listen to the people and relate to their emotional experiences, letting you know that he understands you.
About The Author
Ojukwu Emmanuel is a certified historian with a great passion for creating content. Resourceful, creative, and Ambitious. Takes pride in providing fascinating content.
About Author
- Op-Ed are articles published by guest authors. We no longer accept guest posts. However, we are still open to adding long-term content contributors to our team of insightful writers. To write for us, please check out inisght.ng/guest-post.
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