It is completely impossible to imagine effective teamwork without trust and support among its members. A very important requirement for an leadership is the ability to gain trust. Otherwise, such a person will not have even a single follower, and in fact, by definition, the leader is the one who has the followers.
It is not necessary to feel sympathy or agree with the leaders to trust them. Credibility is the conviction that the leader genuinely believes in what he or she says. This is a conviction in their directness. Actions of the leaders should be consistent with what they encourage the others.
Real leadership is not based on the intelligence, but on the ability to always be consistent.
Here are the tips to help you become a true and effective leader of your team that are going to assist you in gaining credibility as a leader.
1. Be consistent and honest
If you, as an authoritative leader, promise something, you should ALWAYS keep your words. Those who prefer to lie for the sake of eloquence should get rid of this bad habit, as people will soon cease to take their words seriously.
2. Learn to listen
Mutually beneficial cooperation, built on sincere respect, implies that the collective leader knows how to listen to other people, singling out the most important of their problems. Active listening contributes to most successful projects. Only by listening, one can understand the needs of the company. Pauses, repetitions, clarifications, statements of attitude towards the things you have heard will be guaranteed to benefit all the participants of the dialogue.
3. Try to compromise
Since the leader is not just a robot who is giving the orders, but a person who lives considering the interests of the team, your status will depend on your ability to communicate. Effective search for compromise will bring the leader much more credibility points than an open confrontation with someone. The ability to find a compromise is an art. You need to know how to sacrifice the smaller for the sake of a greater one. A competent leader must be able to prioritize correctly.
4. Show that you care
One of the most important things is the ability to come to help when it is really required. Let the help be not so significant, but it is an effective way to gain trust, and hence, the credibility.
5. Take responsibility
Do not be afraid to take the responsibility for your decisions – this principle should be one of your mottoes on the path of gaining credibility. Of course, there will be those who will try to confuse you. The main thing to remember is that if your team members know that you are not going to dump all responsibility on them, they will trust you more.
6. Explain
Always explain why certain innovations and rules are needed, why it is necessary to carry out the task in a specific way. If you want to establish relations with your subordinates, you should listen to the opinions of the employees in any disagreements, and if their arguments do not seem convincing, explain your decision. In addition to credibility, this position will minimize the errors, although it will take a little longer to explain everything. If you give instructions without explaining why they should be performed, simply as a fact, the employees lose interest in their tasks.
7. Be polite
Most often, in order to gain credibility of a team, it is enough just to be friendly and benevolent. Politeness is an excellent feature of the leader. Try your best and be nice, don’t forget to say “thank you” and “please”. Such simple things have great power in gaining credibility.
8. Consult with your team
To build a relationship on trust, you should listen to the ideas of your subordinates and think about whether you can implement them. If every team member is able to speak out about any issue without fear, you will receive a great source of valuable ideas that can help your development.
9. Avoid the gossips
It is better to avoid gossip and discussions with colleagues and superiors. The spreading of rumors, even unintentionally, will not add you any popularity, but, on the contrary, can severely damage your reputation.
10. Show respect
Any good leader is distinguished by a respectful attitude towards the subordinates. Such a person will never humiliate anyone, will never speak in a raised voice, or belittle the merits of the others. A great way to show respect is to make high demands.
11. Be open
Open the door of your office to your subordinates. Tell them that they can come to you at any time and discuss any ideas or difficulties of their work. Be ready to listen to everyone. In this case, take everything calmly so that people won’t be afraid of your anger. If your employees see that you are a “real,” open and sensitive person, they will be more inclined to trust you.
12. Be competent
An effective leader must be a real expert on his or her field, possessing much larger competence than just a basic understanding and knowledge. You have to be ready to face the problems and find quick and effective solutions.
13. Keep Calm
If you want to be heard – speak more quietly. The ability to control yourself even in stressful situations, control the voice and intonation helps to influence the interlocutor and maintain credibility properly.
An optimistic, reliable and benevolent leader is a guarantee that there will be no intimidated employees in the team, most will happily go to work and fully reveal their talents without the fear of punishment.
My name is Erica Fleming, I am a blogger and work as an editor. I am from Missouri. I have a Master’s Degree in literature and love both reading and writing about books and literary topics. I also help students with their literary assignments – articles, essays and flashnews.net.