My philosophy on good leadership means having the ability to garner respect and willingness to perform from the people being led. In order to garner that respect, the leader must have a certain understanding of the people being led. Any group of people, whether it is three or 30, will have a varied range of personalities. The leader must know each basic personality, or at least have a good idea of each, in order to know how to get each person to accomplish the goals required. Good leadership also means being able to accurately identify problems and goals, assess the situation, determine possible solutions and assign the most effective method and personnel to get the job done right the first time.
A good leader must know a bit about the abilities of each person in order to assign tasks to the best people suited to accomplish those tasks. For instance, if a job requires a lot of physical effort, a good leader would not assign that task to a frail person, but instead, would assign it to someone known to be able to accomplish the goal. On the same note, if the task required a lot of thought and accuracy, a good leader would not assign it to a person who has a short attention span or one who does not pay attention to details.
A good leader also needs to respect and consider the impact of how and when things are said. This means never embarrass any worker in front of their co-workers. If there is a problem with what someone says, does, or does not do, a good leader will take that person to a private area to discuss it without belittling the person. An embarrassed or humiliated worker will not be a happy worker and could cause even more problems in the future or leave the group altogether, leaving a void in the team and tasks undone. Most people prefer to be asked to do a task rather than sternly being told to do it. If a leader says, “You, do this. You, do that.” the workers will grudgingly do the work. If they say something like “I need this done, can you do that for me?”, workers will be happier and, in most cases, more work will be accomplished. In both cases, the same information was transmitted but in the second example, more people will be happy to do the task. It was not so much what was said, but how it was said. Most people want to be helpful but do not like having things demanded of them unless the circumstances are extreme.
Another requirement of good leadership is listening to suggestions from the workers. Because they are the ones doing the actual work, they may have an idea that could make some tasks go smoother, faster or more efficiently. A good leader never assumes he/she knows all the answers to everything.
Overall, I think the best leader is one who considers how the person on the receiving end of the conversation is receiving the message. If the message is rude, unclear, disrespectful, or disorganized, the required goals will not be met, no matter how good the workers are. If the leadership is bad, everyone looks bad. If the leadership is good, everyone looks good and goals are accomplished accurately and on time.
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