Before we dive into the ways you can improve leadership effectiveness, we’d better clear up what we mean by the term itself. Leadership effectiveness centres around a leader’s ability to lead, manage, guide and influence their team members. The kind of influence in the organisation that ensures everyone moves in the same direction to achieve shared goals. The effectiveness of a leader can be measured by seeing the overall growth and performance of their teams.
Teams with higher levels of productivity and performance, coupled with employee satisfaction and wellbeing, report highly on leadership effectiveness. It’s vital for leaders to set the right tone for the organisation as this has an impact on employee engagement, culture and the overall employee experience. Studies have shown that effective leaders are most likely to bring positive outcomes. However, despite the importance of successful leadership in shaping and motivating employees to perform beyond expectations, there are several other essential factors that need to be considered.
After all, successful leadership only has a minor impact on the organisation’s financial performance. Other factors, such as the organisational culture and workplace climate can have an impact on individual team performance. Measuring leadership effectiveness is important as effective leaders provide clarity of purpose and motivate and guide the organisation to fulfil its mission. We’re now going to share five ways you can improve upon your leadership effectiveness.
1. Clarity around goals and expectations
For your employees to be at their most productive and engaged in their work, it’s important that they understand what’s required of them. It’s vital that leaders explain the overall company vision and objectives and how each member fits into that vision; by being aware of this, employees will be more focused and understand how their work contributes to the overall vision; this helps employees understand the end result they’re working towards as a business. Knowing how they contribute to the organisation’s goals will help boost positive emotions, increase motivation, improve perceptions during a workday, and most importantly help them make progress towards meaningful work. 
When setting objectives, involve your teams, and give them the chance to comment and contribute their thoughts and ideas. When goals are clearly set, everyone can track progress and identify achievements in a tangible manner.
2. Inspire others
A key skill of a leader is being able to inspire others to do their best and to motivate others to keep pushing. As a leader, you’ll get great benefit out of knowing what motivates people, what their aspirations are and how to encourage them to support one another. A big part of this is having empathy and listening to your team’s concerns. If you understand a person, you’re more likely to be able to help them be effective. One way of motivating your teams is to recognise their efforts and show them praise for any achievements. Also, recognise when they make mistakes and offer feedback that they can take on board and work on.
3. Creating a culture of feedback
If you’re not already aware, we’re big advocates of regular feedback at There Be Giants. Honest and direct feedback is a great way to help guide your team in the right direction. We’ve already touched on this, but feedback is important so that employees are aware of not only when they’ve performed well, but also when they may not be performing as expected and need a little guidance onto the right path. If you’re not direct, people won’t know what you think about their work, and it will make it nearly impossible for them to improve. 
In addition to providing constructive feedback and performance reviews, highlight employee accomplishments. If a team member does something great, let them know. Celebrate their wins and thank them for their hard work. This form of recognition will create an environment of productivity as it’s encouraging and can motivate the employee. It’s not just your team members that will benefit from feedback, a self-assessment of your own leadership is needed too. Ask your colleagues, your fellow leaders and your peers for an evaluation of your leadership style. Another route to go down is leadership coaching, this is sometimes more beneficial as you can get an outsider’s perspective on your leadership approach.
4. Communication
Another vital element of effective leadership is communication with your team members. You may find your team members prefer different styles of communication, it’s important as a leader to understand different communication styles and adapt accordingly. Your organisation and its people are a reflection of its leaders; if you have honesty and transparency as key values, and practice what you preach, your employees are more likely to follow suit. Effective leadership goes a long way to winning the trust and confidence of your team members and sets a good tone. Keep your employees informed regularly of changes within the business; don’t keep them shut out in the dark.
5. Seek out professional development
Another way leaders can improve their effectiveness is to seek out opportunities for learning and professional development. We’re all aware of the saying that ‘you can never stop learning’, and it’s true; there’s always an opportunity to up-skill or learn more about certain areas or topics. As a leader, it’s important to be self-aware of any shortcomings and identify areas for improvement; knowing those you can then seek out ways to improve and develop further. By investing in professional development and learning, leaders can stay up-to-date on the latest practices and techniques while ensuring they are effectively leading and supporting their employees. It can be said that a leader’s responsibility is to motivate their teams and provide constructive feedback in order to boost motivation and productivity, alongside overseeing strategic priorities and driving forward business growth.
If you’ve identified a need for leadership training or would like to speak to someone about how to increase your leadership effectiveness further, speak to our team for an open chat.