What is Leadership
“The group of people who are guiding something”
Leadership means directing the energy of the employees to actions in order to achieve a condition desired by the executive in the future and to increase the energy of the employees in the long run.
Leadership is to increase energy and increase it in the long term
Whoever takes a leadership position for the first time asks himself right: What am I doing here? What is leadership? Too often I meet executives, where the leadership has somehow got to the other tasks. Most of them were chosen because they were simply the best in the team. No one has told them what leadership means, and they have had too little time to deal with it.
In order to be able to fill the management position with confidence, one must first understand what leadership means. The second step is to examine what skills and methodological knowledge one need to develop in order to implement this claim.
I would like to take the first step in this basic article. From my point of view, leadership entails a threefold responsibility and thus links a threefold chance:
- Responsibility towards the company
- Responsibility towards the employees
- Responsibility towards oneself
What is leadership? Responsibility towards the company!
If you take the lead for a team, department or area, you take responsibility towards the company. They assert by this decision: I will ensure that my area of responsibility brings results, fulfills its function and develops itself further.
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At first glance, this is not so different from what you as a ‘normal’ employee have done, namely, to bring performance. Otherwise, you would not get the position. For many, however, it is difficult to suddenly identify with their own technical performance. Before that, you were satisfied when you personally brought top performance. Now it would be ideal if you were to make sure that your team was performing well and that you made the least direct contribution. They should guide bring performance.
This is a rather large switch, which is to be changed in the head and many contradict me: “No, it is not. I am also still operationally active and must bring the performance itself. “Well? This is normal, especially for team or group leaders, but it happens next to the lead. At the moment you are employees in your own team and have professional-operational tasks. In your leadership role, you are fulfilling leadership tasks. The daily business keeps you from it? Guided tour is your daily business.
If you are a novice in the management tasks, the temptation to neglect them is too much, and too much to fall back on the usual operational tasks in which you feel safe. There is also usually enough to do, especially before you had a lot to do with it. It is easy to convince yourself that there is no other way and that there is simply no time for this leadership. However, you neglect the responsibility as a driving force towards the company. If someone does not fill his position, a hole is created.
Their area of responsibility falls in its function when the topics, projects, and tasks assigned to it are running independently and the interaction with the interfaces – the other areas of responsibility – is working. What this means in concrete terms depends on the functional and hierarchical classification within the company. Responsibility to the company may include direct responsibility to customers or suppliers, for example, when your team is on the road in sales or service. So you need an overview of all the topics for which you are responsible with your employees and you need the exchange with the contact persons of the interfaces. Is your team a reliable gearwheel in the company’s structure or even a drive, an accelerator or a bottleneck?
What is the responsibility for this responsibility? The bigger your area of responsibility, the greater your chance to influence and shape. You need it and you are allowed to. If you are a little disturbed and you can not influence it, it can be quite frustrating. The more responsibility you have, the more you can shape your work environment and secure it for the future.
What is leadership? Responsibility to the employees!
The employees deserve their livelihood with their performance in their team. Often, it is not just individual but family existences. It is not only for the sake of the company and for the company’s sake that leadership must make this service possible but also for the employees’ sake.
What do employees, generally speaking, need to be able to perform?
- information
- resources
- Skills
- motivation
- Feedback
At least the goals and expectations must be known to employees. Too often employees get bad reviews, without your expectations being made clear. They also need information on their specific tasks. They do not always have to come from you, but you have to make sure that the flow of information is clear.
Does the amount of work your employees have in common with their working hours? If not, are the priorities clear? Do they have reasonable resources or do the loading times of the age-old calculator have a lot of time and nerves? In short, are there sufficient resources available? This is a topic that many managers struggle with each other and with their superiors because resources are linked to budgets and they are limited.
Resources and information are of little use without technical, methodological and social skills. As a leader, you not only distribute the tasks according to the skills but also ensure the further development of the employees. This also means that you have to look a little in the future, where your company and the technologies in the market move. Will your employees, with their current skills, be able to continue to be ‘power carriers’ within three years?
The motivation of the employees ensures that they also use their abilities. Your primary responsibility is not to destroy this motivation by placing unnecessary stones in your path or positioning yourself as a disgusting package. Real motivation comes from within. As a leader, however, you can influence it if you know the influencing factors on motivation.
I wanted to give feedback first because ultimately it is an information about how you assess the performance and behavior of your employees. Employees need and want feedback. Even if it is sometimes unpleasant at the moment. To tell you at some point that you have been dissatisfied with certain behaviors or achievements for years is hardly fair and ultimately means that you have not performed your leadership performance.
In addition, you represent the employer as a direct executive with the employee and therefore legal obligations, for example, the duty of caring. In particular, work safety is an issue in this context.
Why are you doing this? The responsibility towards your employees is an opportunity to provide others with an environment and an orientation to get them to the top.
What is leadership? Responsibility towards yourself!
In your leadership position, you are required to a person. Employees, colleagues, supervisors and yourself associate with this position expectations about your attitudes, your appearance, your behavior and your abilities.
Sometimes I feel like the companies are taking excellent handlers, putting them in the football league and saying, “Now show what you can!” And no one dares to ask “How does it work?” All, football you would have seen often enough and that could be played by the way. No! It is a different game, for which you have to learn the rules and to practice the techniques intensively. And as soon as you stop developing, you build.
Leadership is a different game than the operational work. If others trust you with this game and you feel like it is a good prerequisite, but it is not enough. It is part of the responsibility towards oneself
- To be aware of its roles
- To begin with the beginners’ status
- The necessary support, training, and coaching
- To gradually develop into the role and position
Reflection and feedback are essential to the development of a good leadership. Anyone who has a claim to be able to dominate the football game from day to day because he is so good in the handball is quickly crushed and frustrated by his own and foreign demands.
The beauty is that you can develop much more long-term in the lead than in football and with 50 still do not belong to the old iron. Ensure that you acquire the necessary knowledge and skills and develop into the personality you want to be a leader.
