The “boss” will be familiar to most people. Like a general in the military, a chief maintains order, distributes instructions, and punishes poor performance. A boss’s relationship with his people is colder; its staff operate only out of a sense of duty, following the orders of another person with more power. But, in this article, we will talk about traits to become a true leader.
Leaders take my always open door to teach, help, guide, and learn a management approach. Being a leader is not about authority, but about support, empathy, and even vulnerability. Mistakes and even failures are used as catalysts for teaching and learning, staff receives constant advice and advice from their superiors on how they can improve, and relationships in the workplace are personal and genuine.
The difference between a boss and a leader is crucial. Being a boss can make some feel important, but young talents respond quickly by walking out the door or giving only the minimal effort required to appease the boss in charge. Both are expensive for organizations.
More motivated young talent, greater respect from colleagues, and better performance for all lead to real leadership. I’m sure everything sounds great. But how do you make the transition from being a boss to a leader?
Making the transition from boss to a leader
One of the most important things we focus on is teaching people how to become their best selves, focus on impacting others, or in other words, an amazing leader that everyone wants to work with. This is an intensive learning process, but there are a few things you can do right now to start transitioning yourself.
Become Self Aware and Realize Authoritarian Management is Temporary
In terms of management style, being a tough authoritarian is the easy way out. It’s all emotion, not thinking, and it doesn’t require any real impact or solution to occur to you.
And that’s why leaders who are more effective, not just with Millennials but as managers in general, portray themselves as mentors and support coaches for their younger staff.
Rather than yelling, a leader guides her people through their mistakes, identifies ways they can improve, and helps support others as they try to turn their advice into tools for the actions of others. These are not times for the leader to exercise power, they are opportunities for teaching, learning, and growth.
This approach is critical when working with Millennials. Millennials enter the workforce without key professional skills, but they are also incredibly eager to learn. The best leaders use that eagerness to their advantage, training, and advising their young talents at every opportunity.
Provide constant feedback
The days of relying solely on an annual performance review are over. Even increasing quarterly reviews will leave your younger talent behind. To truly meet their need for feedback, leaders should provide their Millennials’ feedback, on average, about once a day/month, as needed. We call it “on-demand”
That may sound like a lot, but keep in mind that Millennials don’t expect official performance appraisal meetings either, they just want you to have their “apologies” returned for the politically incorrect reference.
Instead, Millennials want regular and quick feedback on their performance so they can be sure they are always working to improve as professionals and aligned with their leaders. Whether it’s a 10-minute exchange on Slack or a cup of coffee on Monday morning, Millennials don’t need an official meeting. They just want to choose their leader’s brain to understand how they can improve and reestablish that both sides are humans trying to do the best job possible. And achieve madass skills.
Inspire through authenticity
Why are Millennials more interested in what influencers use on Instagram than what massive corporations are driving through million-dollar ad campaigns?
The answer is authenticity.
And authenticity is as critical to leading Millennials effectively as it is to buy their product.
Authentic leaders create real relationships with their staff. They share their personal story and listen to the stories of their people. They develop relationships that go beyond the workplace. And they are not above leaving.
The result is that authentic leaders and their followers begin to understand themselves as people with a genuine connection. Your staff wants to do a good job not out of a sense of duty, but because they care about how their actions affect their colleagues and leaders. It’s about helping people and working together to achieve goals as a team or contribution. And that intrinsic motivation is how you get the best out of people.
Becoming a true leader and leaving the boss behind is no easy task: it requires a much higher emotional IQ, more depth of thought, learning, vulnerability, other-focused disciplines, and more daily effort than being an authoritative boss. However, those who can achieve true leader status reap benefits that make all the extra effort worthwhile.
Conclusion
At some point in our lives, we have all had a relationship with someone, perhaps a parent, teacher, or employer, that greatly changed the way we view life and the world. Someone who had high standards and really stood for something, someone who inspired and motivated us, and someone who taught us how to set goals and instilled the confidence and spirit to achieve them. Such a person is a true leader.
Today, we are surrounded by people we can call leaders: in government, in business, in education, in the arts. But we are suffering from a shortage of genuine leadership. Where do these people really lead us and why?
After witnessing so much deception and such frequent abuse of power, many people have stopped trusting their leaders. Still, no matter how cynical we may be, we resign ourselves to the fact that we need someone to keep our various houses in order. Since we are so concerned with our own lives, we are willing to choose or appoint officials to manage the affairs of the land.