The Skills You Should Develop To Be The Most Effective Boss You Can Be

If you’re looking to start your own business, or you already have one and you see it quickly growing with new team members, you might think to yourself about whether or not you’re truly an effective boss. It can be hard to tell when you have so many responsibilities on your plate, but regardless, it’s always worth taking the time to work on the skills that enable you to be the leader, manager, and course charter that your business needs. As such, here are some of the skills you might want to focus on. 

Communication

Good bosses are able to communicate clearly, with purpose, and with their audience in mind. Having good presentation skills and strong verbal abilities are all well and good, but this also means listening actively and making sure that your team feels like they are genuinely the other party in that conversation. Great leaders focus on clarity, tone, and timing, adjusting their approach depending on the situation and the needs of their team members. Whether you’re sharing feedback, talking about new goals, or addressing challenges, you should make sure that communication is a two-way street. Consistency in communication is also important. Your team members need to always be aware of your expectations, rather than live in fear of crossing some unseen boundaries.

Problem-Solving

As the boss, the final responsibility for the business’s goals rests with you. While your team can undoubtedly help you with a wide range of problems and concerns, especially when they’re trusted to and given some responsibility of their own, you will often be the one making the decisions. As such, you need to work to develop strong problem-solving skills by being able to analyse issues from various angles, making decisions based on logic, and relying on the expertise of your team members when you need it. Problem-solving doesn’t mean acting like you have all the answers, but rather it’s about developing the structured habits to address questions with all the resources at your disposal, especially when it means asking others for their expert insights.

Leadership

While it might sound like an abstract concept or a collection of qualities rather than a true skill, leadership is all about understanding the dynamics of being at the head of a team, being able to motivate and move them to follow your direction. To that end, formal training and developing skills like professional ILM coaching & mentoring qualifications can help you develop greater insights into what makes your team tick, and how you can encourage them to work towards your goals. Leadership is also about modelling the kind of behaviour, work ethic, and culture that you want to see from your company, as well. Showing accountability and inspiring others through your own work not only sets a level of trust from employees who feel like they’re not just being commanded from above, but it also makes people more likely to follow in your footsteps.

Emotional Intelligence

A big part of strong communication and leadership skills is the ability to comprehend the inner lives and emotional responses of not just your colleagues and people you do business with, but yourself, as well. Emotional control is not about mastering a stoic facade to the world, but rather about understanding your psychological triggers so that you can address difficult conversations and operate under pressure. When you better understand your own emotional landscape, you’re a lot more likely to better empathise and work with others, as well. Working on mindfulness techniques in your own time can help you become much more aware of your own emotions.

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Time Management

On a much more practical scale, you likely have deadlines and schedules to work on, so being able to organise your time well can be crucial. This is especially important as your company grows bigger and your responsibilities take you further away from the front line and into more of a managerial role. Knowing where you are able to best spend your time to make the most effective use of your day is important. A good priority matrix tool can help you organise your tasks by which are the most important and the most urgent, ensuring that you’re focusing on the work that has to be done first. Otherwise, it’s easy to get buried in the endless queue of tasks that a boss always has to contend with, while letting important things slip away.

Delegation

As you get better at time management, you will begin to understand that there are some duties that have to be done, even if you don’t have the time for them yourself. One of the most important skills of an effective boss is to delegate those tasks. It’s not just about assigning them, but about trusting the right people with the responsibilities that help them grow, and priming them for the role. It’s a great way to find the leadership material in your team and to contribute towards their own development goals. A lot of people who build their own businesses can often struggle with letting things go, so learning this skill can be vital for being able to stay at the head of a company that keeps growing beneath you.

Conflict Resolution

There is no workplace that is totally free from the potential for conflict, no matter how hard you work to create a positive and motivated work culture. In fact, how you handle those conflicts can shape the workplace culture from that point onwards. Being able to listen calmly to all perspectives, to understand the rights and safety of your team, and to provide solutions which respect all involved parties (when possible) is crucial. It’s also important to know when the duties of a boss cross over with HR, and when you might not be the right person to help immediately handle a complaint. When workplace conflicts are resolved respectfully, teams become more cohesive and trust deepens.

If you want to know how effective a boss you are, make sure to keep an open door to feedback from your team. There’s only so much you can learn by yourself, after all.

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