In the corporate world of business, effective leadership is crucial for success, regardless of size or market share. As a specialist transformation advisor and consultant, Amna Zaidi has spent decades guiding organisations and leaders to their full potential. Drawing from her extensive experience, Amna shares here her top eight tips for mastering leadership, providing invaluable insights for leaders at all stages of their careers.
Self-awareness
Cultivating self-awareness is the cornerstone of effective leadership. Understanding your strengths, weaknesses, and emotional triggers allows you to lead authentically and make informed decisions. A good way to continuously improve is to regularly seek feedback from colleagues and mentors to gain diverse perspectives on your leadership style.
Develop emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence (EI) is essential for building strong relationships and managing teams. Leaders with high EI can empathise with their team members, navigate complex social situations, and manage stress professionally and even gracefully. If you focus on improving your self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills, this will go a long way towards enhancing the levels of emotional intelligence that you already have.
Communicate clearly
Clear and transparent communication creates trust and alignment amongst your team. Make it a priority to articulate what your vision is, your expectations, and give feedback to people you work with clearly. It’s really important to encourage “open dialogue”, and that you are approachable, so team members feel comfortable sharing their ideas and concerns with you.
Empower and delegate
Effective leaders empower their team members by delegating responsibilities and trusting them to deliver results. Delegation not only distributes the workload but also fosters a sense of ownership and accountability for teams and individuals, which will challenge and bring out the best in people. Identify the strengths of your people and assign them tasks that align with their particular skills and interests.
Adaptability and resilience
Especially in today’s fast-paced business environment, leaders must be able to navigate change, pivot strategies, and remain calm under pressure to succeed. They can develop these crucial skills by cultivating a growth mindset, viewing challenges as opportunities, and seeing the importance of developing strategies to maintain composure during difficult times.
Commit to learning
Leadership is a journey and not a destination. Aim to stay ahead by committing to continuous learning and professional development that you enjoy. Attend workshops, read, and seek mentorship regardless of your position, to expand your knowledge and skills. It’s also important that you embrace new technologies and methodologies to keep your leadership approach current.
Create a positive culture
A positive organisational culture not only enhances team morale and productivity, it also aids employee retention. Therefore, you should lead by example and promote values such as integrity, collaboration, and respect. Recognise and reward people’s achievements and create an inclusive environment where diversity of personality and thought is celebrated.
Vision and purpose
Visionary leaders inspire and motivate their teams by providing a clear sense of direction and purpose for everyone they work with. Articulate a compelling vision for the future, connect it to the day-to-day work of your team, and follow it through. Ensure that your actions and decisions consistently reflect your vision and core values and don’t turn into a “box-ticking” exercise.
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Amna Zaidi is a leading business transformation advisor, consultant, and international speaker. As a qualified Chartered Accountant, Amna first reported to a company board at just 24 years old, as the only female, Asian, and Muslim in her position, an experience that has shaped her. Having spent over two decades working in banking and financial services for companies including NatWest/The Royal Bank of Scotland, Deloitte and Lloyds HBOS, Amna can step into almost any industry to support top-level executives from the boardroom to C-Suite. She advises on business transformational matters ranging from takeovers to mergers, negotiation to leadership training, employee engagement to inclusion and diversity, to ensure responsible strategies for long-term business success.
