Are You a True Leader?

As a leader, you are responsible for your team's performance and for creating the right environment for people to fell valued and motivated. Being a leader requires you to demonstrate actions and behaviors that are based on the four pillars: leadership skills, functional and technical competencies, values, and business acumen. These four pillars make the leadership model.

To be an effective leader, you must:

• Demonstrate effective leadership skills
• Display a strong functional and technical knowledge in your field
• Possess strong business acumen
• Exhibit organization values

Let's, focus on all the four pillars required for True Leadership:

1. Leadership Skills - Effective leadership skills include not just your own talents and know-how, but also how well you leverage the ability of other people for the success of the organization. It is about your ability to influence behavior and drive results.
2. Functional / Technical competencies - To become a leader, it is necessary to constantly work towards improving your functional and technical skills in your chosen field. The various functional areas could be operations, finance, sales, quality, information technology, or human resources. The functional/technical competence of a leader drives change and keeps the business competitive and successful.
3. Business Acumen - To be an effective leader, you must have an understanding of what makes a business successful, the metrics by which the business is measured, and what the business must do to be competitive and successful in the marketplace. Your understanding of the business directly impacts your ability to take the right decisions.
4. Values - Values define who we are and embody the spirit of our company. A company with strong values is capable of spearheading change as business evolves. Integrity is at the core of values.

To develop into an effective leader, you must possess certain competencies. Depend on your roles and responsibilities these competencies would have different meaning for you. There are 10 broad categories of competencies required to be great leader.

They are:

1. Strategic Thinking - A strategic thinking Leader is one who:
2. Communicate and aligns the team's vision and objective to business strategies
3. Understand what makes customer win
4. Develops solutions to drive customer success
5. Understands the gaps between the existing and the desired state and then engage the team to address the gaps
6. Growth Oriented - Being a growth leader requires:
7. Setting and meeting stretch goals for self and team
8. Taking personal ownership and responsibility for delivery on commitments and business objectives
9. Delivering superior value to the customer to differentiate from competition
10. Driving productivity to release capacity and resources for growth
11. Innovator - Being an innovator leader requires:
12. Finding and encouraging new ideas and innovation approaching to work
13. Generating out-of-the-box ideas and seeing problems and situations from different perspectives
14. Encouraging creativity, challenging the status quo, and inviting different perspective on how to get the things done
15. Using six sigma and IT to drive simplification and process efficiency
16. Coaching - An efficient leader as a coach is one who:
17. Sets clear performance standards and ensures that there is a strong linkage with the organizational goals
18. Provides ongoing feedback, coaches, and rewards efforts in an appropriate and timely manner
19. Develops people and makes well-defined development plans
20. Hires diverse talent and builds effective retention plans
21. Addresses performance problems and takes decisive and timely actions, where appropriate
22. Communicating - An effective communicator is one who:
23. Express concepts and ideas in a clear, concise and simple manner
24. Listens conscientiously and earns the trust of others by fostering an open and honest communication
25. Has good judgment and displays sensitivity in dealing with different needs and situations
26. Is approachable to others and is available to clarify key issues
27. Develops and makes presentations that have clarity and impact
28. Is able to plan and lead effective meetings and problem solving sessions
29. Change Advocate - A change advocate leader is one who:
30. Anticipates the need for a change and then responds by proactively initiating the change
31. Views changes positively and then effectively models his or her behavior to demonstrate that
32. Is able to convince the team for the need to change and supports them through the change
33. Deals with setbacks by being resilient and adapts to approaches as required
34. Personal Effectiveness - A leader who displays personal effectiveness in one who:
35. Is self aware, solicits feedback, and takes responsibility for developing himself or herself
36. Manages time well and is able to work under stressful situation
37. Mangers his or her emotions well and are able to resolve conflicts effectively
38. Demonstrates the ability to be decisive and stand by his or her decision. When necessary.
39. Learner - A keen Learner is one who:
40. Builds an environment of continuous learning for self and others
41. Exposes self to new experiences, perspectives and practices
42. Actively pursues excellence in his or her chosen field of work
43. Encourage team to reflect on success and failures and learn from mistakes
44. Global Mindset - A leader, who displays a global mindset, is able to:
45. Effectively lead local, global and virtual teams
46. Build an inclusive environment, where everyone can achieve his or her potential
47. Adopt successful practices, wherever they came from
48. Builds team spirit and works well with people from diverse cultures
49. Customer Centric - A leader who adopts a customer-centric approach:
50. Develops effective relationship with customers to understand their needs and fulfill them.
51. Continuously looks for new and improved ways to meet and exceed customer needs.
52. Measures processes and communicates performance results in terms of meeting customer needs.
53. Identifies trends and develops plans to meet future needs of customer.

Following all these competencies will help you to demonstrate values of a true leader at your work place and only leaders are the winners in this competitive corporate world.