10 Key Leadership Behaviors of Successful Leaders

Leadership behavior refers to the actions and traits that a person makes as a leader. As you know, leadership is not just about being authoritative and controlling; a leader must also be able to guide, influence, and motivate. Hence, the behavior of a leader greatly influences the organization. In simple words, it can make or break the work culture. Leaders who do not possess such traits struggle to get their work done, maintain a positive environment, and manage their teams. 

Leadership behavior has so much to do with the organization’s success. A leader's behavior impacts the employees' behavior, which affects organizational performance in addition to individual employee performance. Hence, it is important to have good leadership behavior that can influence and lead people to maximize organizational growth. It also helps retain the current employees and nurture future leaders. 

Understandably, not everyone is born with the gift of practical leadership qualities. So, you can learn, practice, and polish your leadership traits to be effective and the best leader in an organization. 

In this blog, we have discussed some of the traits a leader must possess for the growth of an organization. 

10 Behaviors that Effective Leadership Should Possess

Here are 10 effective leadership qualities that every leader must possess:

1. Compassion

Compassion means having sympathy towards your employees, especially when facing certain unfortunate situations. Leading with compassion builds trust and fosters a positive environment. Hence, your employees will feel more comfortable discussing problems with you instead of sulking, which will hamper their work quality and the outcome. 

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• Stress Management
• Emotional Intelligence
• Decision Making

Skills You Will Build

Stress Reduction, Emotional Regulation, Decision Making

2. Adaptability 

More than just leadership behaviour, adaptability is a requirement.

As you know, organizations are dynamic. Hence, a leader’s ability to adapt to changes is required. If you want to improve your ability to adapt, here are three components of adaptability that you must master:

• Cognitive flexibility is where you can use the ability to implement different thinking strategies and mental frameworks. This helps develop new approaches and the ability to see and develop new connections. In addition, it helps you understand when old approaches don’t work.
• Emotional flexibility helps leaders vary their approach depending on the situation and the emotions of people and themselves. An emotionally flexible leader is comfortable while handling the transition, which includes - grief, complaints, anxiety, and resistance. This helps in influencing the culture.
• Dispositional flexibility helps leaders to operate from a place of optimism. This means a dispositionally flexible leader will acknowledge the bad situation but also will advance more thinking or a better future. 

All the three mentioned above help you develop innovative leadership qualities that will ultimately lead to the organization's growth. 

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• Problem-Solving
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3. Active Listening

As per the survey report of The Workforce Institute at UKG, approximately 74% of the employees say they are more effective and productive when they feel heard. Active listening means giving your employees a chance to say what they want to say without deviating your attention. This helps you comprehend what they are trying to say and encourages your employees to speak out when needed. Employees appreciate this leadership behaviour, as this builds trust, bridges the communication gap, and inspires the team to collaborate with other members. Also, creating open communication fosters trust and creativity among the team members.

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4. Self-Awareness 

Being self-aware means you are aware of your understanding, character, and feelings. Hence, it is the most sought-after leadership behaviour. This helps in knowing that you are aware of your strengths and weaknesses, in addition to how you respond to certain circumstances, and also knowing your actions would influence the culture mindset and work of your employees. This serves as a foundation that can help you make improvements where needed. Also, being aware of yourself helps in approaching certain situations calmly. A self-awareness training program can help build a powerful leadership trait that ensures that your team feels safe and secure in the workplace and contributes to the best of their abilities. This leadership trait allows self-exploration where your team is not afraid to ask questions, bring ideas to the table, or ask for help.

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5. Time Management 

An effective leader understands how to use their time wisely. Also, they know how to make their employees use the best of the time allotted for work. They do this by streamlining every project with a specific deadline that makes the flow smooth, which results in better outcomes. It is already proven that decisions made and work done under duress can lead people to lose their minds and overwork, which is also costly for leaders. Hence, advanced leadership behaviour models stress time management above all.

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• Goal Setting
• Decision Making
• Stress Management

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6. Communication

It is important to convey your messages to your employees and colleagues in a better and more precise or elaborative manner. This is one of the most positive leadership behaviours that every leader must possess. So, ensure you can communicate verbally and in writing properly, as a small miscommunication can lead to severe blunder in the workflow. Even if you are not a good communicator, naturally, you can enhance your skills by taking interpersonal skills training, as it helps you learn how to communicate effectively, thus reducing miscommunication and promoting the free flow of ideas.

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• Active Listening
• Time Management
• Written Communication

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7. Accountability

Accountability does not mean holding only your employees accountable for the mistake that has occurred at the workplace. As a leader, you must develop accountability leadership behaviour in workspace by holding yourself accountable, too:

• See where you are lacking
• If there’s something you missed
• If you gave the instructions right
• If you forgot to set the deadline for the project
• If you forgot to inform me about an important project
• If you have checked with your team on the update 
• If you have cleared out any confusion regarding the project

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• Goal Setting
• Delegation
• Problem-Solving

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Goal Setting , Time Management , Problem-Solving , Delegation

8. Empathy

As a leader, you must possess empathy - one of the most important behavioral leadership skills. This is because a person, in this case, a leader, can easily understand what the other person is feeling or experiencing by putting himself in the employees’ shoes. Being understanding fosters trust as you understand their problem, get to the issues, and resolve them immediately.

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• Negotiation
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effective communication , negotiation , Emotional Intelligence , Problem-solving , Resilience

9. Constructive Feedback

As a leader, it is important to give feedback in the workplace. However, constructive feedback can help your employees know their areas of improvement and motivate them to work on their errors. Constructive feedback is aimed at achieving a positive outcome by providing proper advice and suggestions that are useful for future work. For example - if your employee does something wrong, instead of criticizing, tell them where they need to work and what they can improve - this will highlight the areas where they are lacking. Thus creating a good atmosphere in the workplace. Giving constructive feedback is considered good leadership behaviour.

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10. Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence consists of empathy, self-awareness, reflection, and compassion. A leader with emotional intelligence quality knows how to control their emotions and how they express them. This helps in understanding and building a good and healthy relationship with their employees, which contributes to the organization's growth. 

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• Self Awareness
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Implementing Effective Leadership in Organizational Culture

Here’s how you can implement positive leadership behaviour in organizational culture:

Create a Shared Commitment to Development

Organizational leaders and team members who want to grow within that organization collectively decide to prioritize the human element of work. Traditional management frequently ensures activities are executed effectively and assesses performance using predetermined criteria.

The first step is to establish a community that values growth and encourages everyone to strive for individual and group excellence. Today’s workforce values purpose, growth opportunities, and a supportive work environment, but it may be difficult to keep and satisfy with a management-culture approach that places a lot of emphasis on task delegation and oversight. However, encouraging a growth attitude, giving frequent feedback, and providing chances for ongoing leadership behaviour learning and development must receive more attention in transitioning to a leadership culture.

Companies today are striving to make a shared commitment, where every employee in the company, regardless of rank or status, acknowledges that they are accountable for their personal development as well as the development of their peers and colleagues.

Provide Coaching to Every Team Member

The significance of coaching and mentoring in the development of leaders is emphasized heavily in both the Leadership Pipeline and the style of leadership in organizations. But, coaching needs to be accessible to all employees at all times if an organization wants its culture to change from one of management to one of leadership.

This represents a fundamental change in the culture of any organization, whether it is new or old. The work to implement coaching as an organizational strategy involves a variety of strategies, such as hiring leaders with coaching experience, providing external coaching platforms for managers and team members, offering executive or leadership coaching, developing programs to teach employees how to adopt a coaching mindset, and more.

Take Leadership Behavior Assessment 

Taking a behavior assessment helps increase self-awareness and find your weaknesses and strengths as a leader. It helps you understand what kind of leader you are and define your goals. It also helps you assess your skills at regular intervals and decide which leadership training would be better for you. 

Training Plan for Improving Leadership Behavior

Developing a training program to enhance leadership behaviour requires a systematic and deliberate approach. Here are five important things you can think about while arranging training plans for leaders in your organization

Emotional Intelligence and Self-awareness: The objective of the training program is to increase a leader’s emotional intelligence and self-awareness, which will help them better comprehend both their own and others’ emotions. Here’s what can be done:

•  Perform emotional intelligence test
•  Conduct mindfulness and introspection workshops
• Motivate executives to participate in 360-degree evaluations and request feedback

Effective Communication Skills: The objective is to enhance the leadership behaviour to communicate with team members in a transparent, honest, and caring manner. Here’s what can be done:

• Offer scenarios so that challenging talks can be practiced
• Explain how to modify your communication style to accommodate various team members
• Provide communication courses with an emphasis on giving constructive criticism and active listening.

Decision Making and Conflict Resolution: The goal of the training plan is to provide leaders with the tools they need to resolve disputes amicably and come to wise judgments. Here’s what can be done for developing leadership behaviours: 

• Give leaders case studies to consider, evaluate, and debate
• Use decision-making role-plays to hone critical thinking skills
• Provide instruction in dispute resolution, with a focus on win-win outcomes

Team Building and Collaboration: The objective of the plan is to enhance the capacity to manage productive teams to promote a collaborative and inclusive atmosphere. Here’s what you can do:

• Instruction on building inclusiveness and diversity in teams
• Workshops and team-building activities to improve team dynamics
• Motivate team leaders to provide tasks and provide team members with authority

Adaptation and Change Management: This leadership behavior training plan is to foster resilience and adaptation in leaders to improve their capacity to lead and navigate through change. Here’s what can be done:

• Run through scenarios to get experience in taking charge in ambiguous situations
• Provide seminars on cultivating an environment that values ongoing development
• Offer change management training to help staff members comprehend the workings of organizational change

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

In conclusion, leadership behavior plays a crucial role in shaping a positive work culture and driving team performance. Developing traits that inspire and motivate teams not only enhances productivity but also aids in talent retention. Embracing leadership qualities directly impacts revenue generation and organizational success. For tailored corporate training programs aimed at nurturing effective leadership skills, consider partnering with Edstellar, a trusted provider dedicated to empowering businesses with impactful learning solutions.