The skill of Leadership is required in any one individual in a group of individuals in order to achieve any goal. The efficiency of the group greatly increases with improved leadership skills. One of the current school of thought is servant leadership. In this type of leadership, the leader will help the team members to be more effective and reach the end goal as a team.
The leader should be able to listen to the problems of the team members and be able to effectively communicate the resolution to the appropriate members. The essential leadership skills that are for maintaining a good team and projects are Communication, Creating a circle of trust and respect, Emotional intelligence, Building and leading effective teams, relationships among all levels, Self-awareness.
Communication with people in different levels of the organization, to gain trust between the leader and the organization are the vital skills of a leader. Analyzing the strengths and weaknesses, deal with the emotions of their team members are other factors to be considered to carry out a successful leadership in a project. Decision making in regards to critical situations, identifying the impact, root cause and resolution/alternatives to those critical situations.
As per the study conducted and analyzed that the leader emotional display may affect the team members performance. A leader’s displays of happiness arouse more positive affective reactions in team members than do displays of anger. (VAN KLEEF, 2009). The results are inconsonant with the positive or negative nature of the information that is being shared with the team. Team performance will be better in a happy environment created by the leader.
The amount of time allocated to specific activities, to increase efficiency and productivity. Efficiently working team is important for suitable time management. This means leader should structure the time in a way without the stress of course so that more work will be done in less time.
The leader should also possess the Emotional intelligence to know how to control, and express one’s emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships empathetically and thoughtfully. ‘Emotional Intelligence determines our potential for learning the fundamentals of self-mastery and the like, our emotional competence shows how much of that potential we have mastered in ways that translate into on-the-job capabilities.’ (Goleman, 1995).
Efficient leadership involves the team members to feel that their efforts are important to complete their tasks. A leader motivates all the members by giving them credits, making them believe that they play a vital role for a successful project. Convince the team members about the importance of deliverables that they are going to work. Create a friendly environment to openly discuss the problems of individual team members. Create a good work environment to work stably. Invite to meetings to get the status of every team members to work daily and resolve any impediments if they are facing any proactively.
Few additional skills that the project manager should carry out through the project are Active Listening, Nonverbal communication, Friendliness trust and respect, Open-Mindedness, Feedback, and Collaboration. By developing a self-concept capability project leaders ought to attempt to preserve and sustain their true image.
The contingent reward may be a follow-up strategy of leadership by exception which can lead to either project team members have performed their tasks and achieved the goal or did not meet the goals or deadlines. The previous strategy needs a contingent reward whereas the latter needs a contingent sanction. However, This needs the formal authority of funds that need to be provided to the team.
Leadership skills are important regardless of whether you will not utilize them regularly. When you enter the workforce you will undoubtedly get the responsibility of no less than a project or two sooner or later, and it is then significant that you know how to complete it. Being a leader and having the leadership qualities one should know the importance of the relations with all the levels of the members of the team leading to a positive business performance. Every individual should involve in analyzing the requirements, analyze the stakeholders.
Often, people confuse the idea of ‘happy’ employees with ‘motivated’ employees. These may be related, but motivation actually describes the level of desire employees feel to perform, regardless of the level of happiness.
Suggesting new ideas is much easier when there is an understanding between members of a team that there won’t be any negative feedback or mockery, no matter how someone feels about an idea.