Do you have the leadership mindset?
Below are nine traits and characteristics of leaders and living with the leadership mindset. Leaders have a more powerful way of taking action and persuading their thoughts and visions. They believe that while they may hold the title as leader, they are only as good as their best and worst team member.
They listen.
The biggest trait that produces a leadership mindset is the ability to listen to multiple people and come up with a happy medium for everyone participating. Business owners must develop a culture and environment that makes every staff member feel comfortable and motivated. Not just the three best employees.
Leaders are in charge of implementing new rules or practices that will work with everyone on the team. That can be extremely difficult because often times leaders are bombarded with ten different opinions from their staff or team. It’s not an easy task when five members say “we need to put less effort into marketing on this platform”, and the other five say “We need to double down on our marketing efforts through this platform”. A leader has the intention to not only make everyone happy but produce the best results.
They make unthreatening suggestions.
Leaders know the importance of teaching someone how to solve a problem before insisting they did it completely wrong. They know the power of legitimate guidance and won’t sanction a member of the team before they’ve been properly trained.
Excellent leaders and business owners will notice an issue with a team member early on. They’ll show them the proper way of doing the job before giving them the boot. You’d be surprised how many employees become the top worker after starting as the tremendously stubborn, awful, and unreliable employee.
Leaders know the difference between an employee who simply doesn’t care and one is just uneducated or misinformed. The boot is given when an employee clearly doesn’t value the companies beliefs or culture.
They provide more value.
A person with the leadership mindset is always seeking to add more value to their team. It can often become a conflict when a team member yearns to do more for their company, but fears it could cause disruption. The problem arises when a person steps up and works harder, causing the other members to get pissed and appear like they are doing a sub-par job. It’s actually awful people don’t feel encouraged to do more in their company for this reason.
You should never be afraid to work harder than the people around you. In fact, I would argue that you can develop a leadership mindset if every day you strive to do more than all of your coworkers. Stay later, ask more questions, offer to work holidays, and make new suggestions.
There are many people who just consider their job as a source of income and paycheck every week. There are those who are engaged in the company’s statistics, growth, resources, and much more. It’s painfully obvious when someone doesn’t care whatsoever about the company they work for. They consider their job more as a burden rather than a blessing.
My solution to these people – the infamous “boot”
They take responsibility.
Leaders, business owners, company CEO’s, and people in powerful positions are always the backbone of their organization. They will take responsibility 100% of the time.
This definitely goes back to our previous statement about giving an employee the chance to learn before forcing them to leave. Leaders know that finding a new individual for the position is 10x more of a burden than teaching the current one what’s right and wrong.
There will be countless scenarios where a leader or owner will take a hit because of a team member falling short or creating a new problem. Leaders do not put blame on their team but on themselves for not properly informing or instructing their team.
They are never satisfied.
Some people could look at this as a bad trait for a leader to have. The argument is that leaders don’t give enough credit where credit is due. The truth is leaders know that their employees are always capable of doing better and improving. They do reward results and progress but they are mainly focused on achieving bigger goals and levels for their organization.
It’s an excellent tool for motivation. Would you rather work with someone who is constantly pushing you to grow or someone who is always content with how well you’re doing? it may mean working harder but harder is better.
Most people struggle with feeling recognized for their efforts at their job or workplace. You are always recognized but not always rewarded. If you were always rewarded for your actions, how much more would you do every day? Would you clean your desk every day? Would you take out every trash bin so the Janitor could have time to pick up his kids from school? Probably not.
Some more small but important things that leaders do:
- Incredible attention to detail
leaders will notice that on a day where everyone was given a hearty breakfast, sales increased by 10%. They sweat the little stuff and do everything with excellence.
- Kindness.
A bad day for a leader will not transfer over to a bad day for the entire team. Leaders will not walk around telling everyone in a rude manner how bad of a job they are doing. Followed by them kicking their feet up on the desk and doing nothing. That behavior only encourages employees to not give a damn about anything.
- Handle Stress extremely well.
Leaders are phenomenal at handling waves of stress and difficulty. It’s probably one of the key factors that separate a leadership mindset from a regular mindset. Leaders will not work less hard in an economic downshift. They will work more to stay on top.
- Tell it how it is.
Leaders will not hold back from telling the truth. Most people are afraid to give someone their honest opinion and constructive criticism. Leaders are not afraid to give you authentic feedback allowing you to improve greatly.
Conclusion:
Anyone can be a leader. This article should help you understand that you could be just as valuable as the person at the highest level of the company you work for. Practice developing all nine of these traits and you might end up becoming the person with the nicest office and incredible view. Don’t let a title be the reason you lack the motivation to stand out in your company. Leadership mindset is thinking and acting like a CEO regardless of whether or not you work for someone else.