A leader is someone who holds her—or himself accountable for finding the potential in people and processesBrené Brown
Being an effective leader is essential to developing a cohesive and well functioning team. There are many aspects of leadership that are important to understand to ensure your team meet goals and overcome challenges. As a leader, it is also important to understand how to successfully develop your team members to reach their own career aspirations.
In this chapter, we discover what is leadership, how leadership can be different to management and the role of a leader in business.
Leadership is not simply giving instructions and managing tasks; instead, it involves connecting with your team to enable open communication to foster and encourage employees growth and development.
Leadership is the ability to influence others to achieve their goals and contribute to the growth and improvement of an organisation. Being a leader means providing people with the guidance and support they need to complete organisational goals. It is made of multiple skills, qualities, and expectations.
In the workplace, being a leader is more than just managing your work team.
Workplace leadership refers to guiding, motivating, and directing others towards unified workplace goals and objectives to meet the needs of a business. It involves having a deep understanding of what your organisation wishes to achieve and influencing those around you to do their part in making it happen. To even consider being a leader takes a lot of courage, and more importantly, preparation. Leadership can come from anywhere or anyone; all it takes to find it is to put in the work.
Professional behaviour qualities of leaders as a role model
Effective leadership is essential in teams and organisations of all sizes. Great leaders distinguish themselves from poor leaders by demonstrating most of the following characteristics:
- Integrity — Being honest, following your convictions in all circumstances and following through with your commitments
- Ability to delegate — Delegating effectively, not just to free up your own time
- Communication — Able to communicate in a number of ways, to a diverse group of people
- Gratitude — Encouraging positive mindsets with your team by expressing gratitude for their contribution and work
- Learning agility — Being open to continuous learning opportunities and knowing how to find solutions when you are unsure.
- Influence — Able to convince people through different methods; this contributes to being an inspiring leader
- Empathy — Able to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling
- Courage — Having the courage to speak up with new ideas, feedback and raise concerns
- Respect — Treating people with respect to create a culture of trust, ease tensions and conflict, and improve the effectiveness of your team
It is important to understand the difference between leadership and management. Leadership, as a skill, is something you need to practice in the workplace continuously.
People frequently confuse leadership and management, but they are not the same thing. The main distinction is that leaders have followers, whereas managers have employees who simply work for them.
A leader focuses on the people in their team, providing guidance, motivation, and inspiration. A Manager focuses on the tasks, deals with day-to-day operations and managing day to day workflow.
Please see the table below that depicts the difference between managers and leaders.
| Managers | Leaders | |
|---|---|---|
| Focus |
Transactional Meeting objectives and delegating tasks |
Transformational Developing a vision and a way forward |
| Priority |
Work Goal is to get things done; task management |
People Care about you and want you to succeed; behavioural focus |
| Team |
Subordinates Lead through authority and task management; telling |
Followers Lead through inspiring and circles of influence; involve & motivate |
| Ethics |
Do things right Follow the rules and maintain status quo |
Do the right things Shape the culture and act with integrity; break rules if required |
Hence, A manager without leadership skills may behave differently by micro-managing, over-organising and controlling their team, or thinking in the short-term rather than building the skills and confidence of their team members.
Watch this video by Simon Sinek where he gives some examples of the difference between leadership and management:
Your organisation will have several requirements that you must meet to be an effective leader in your workplace. These requirements will guide and help you to demonstrate the kind of leadership that your organisation needs.
Every organisation has its own set of values and culture and policies and procedures. As a leader in your workplace, you must be able to identify them before you can exhibit them. To identify them, you must first understand what they are.
The following sections will explain organisation values, culture, code of conduct, policies, and legislation in a workplace.
Organisational values and Culture
Every organisation has a set of principles that it will follow. Organisational values are important in developing the workplace culture and the organisation’s reputation to its stakeholders.
An organisation’s values are based on what kind of organisation it is. For example, consider the values and guidance contained in the mission statement from well-known merchandiser, L.L. Bean: “Sell good merchandise at a reasonable profit, treat your customers like human beings, and they will always come back for more”. The statement establishes a clear priority for how to deal with customers when they are shopping for or reporting a problem with a company product.
Impact on teamwork: These principles and ethics then guide the behaviour of organisation team members. They assist organisations in determining what is right and wrong. Members then act in certain ways, using the values as a guide. For example, an international university would have academic excellence and diversity values, while a construction company would prefer safety and professionalism. It is essential for you to know and understand your organisation’s values because it will guide you towards the kind of performance that truly represents it.
Organisational values are usually subject to change as the company changes. The values will always reflect what an organisation strives to present in all its procedures, projects, and output.
Workplace policies
Organisational policies are courses of action adopted by your organisation and provide your workers organisational standards on how to work and conduct themselves.
Thus, every staff member of the organisation must comply with the requirements set out in the policies and procedures document, for example, certain WHS policies in an organisation have specific rules or procedures to follow. These procedures make it safe for workers when they are in the office.
Some common examples of workplace policies include:
| Document Title | Purpose | How it Impacts Teamwork |
|---|---|---|
| Document Management Policy | This policy defines an organisations approach to the development, review, naming and version control of all documents, including tools, forms, resources, policies and procedures. |
All staff must ensure that they use the current version of all documents. Electronic files will be saved centrally for access by staff in the organisations cloud-based storage system. All document authors or reviewers must follow a consistent approach to developing documents and follow all guidelines as set out in the procedures section. Document authors or developers must also ensure that prior to the development or revision of any document, approval to commence revision or development is granted by their immediate manager or the Managing Director. All documents are subject to approval prior to use by any staff member. Approval must be given for every document by the authorised person specified within the procedure section. This avoids confusion and errors as it ensures everyone is using the most current documents. |
| Communications Policy | This policy aims to specify the various channels of communication within an organisation, determine their intended purpose, and the roles and responsibilities of staff in accessing and using them. |
Ensure that information disseminated to staff is valid, reliable, relevant, easy to access and appropriate. Staff are actively encouraged to share information within the workplace. Expects that staff will use the communication channels and associated tools for business work practices and comply with this and other relevant policies and procedures. The organisation has several communication channels for intended purposes. This ensures the team members are using the appropriate form of communication to avoid confusion and errors. |
| Health and Safety Policy and Procedure | This policy and procedure outline the approach taken by an organisation to ensure a safe and healthy environment for staff, clients and visitors during their participation in workplace activities. |
Working safely: All staff have a responsibility to work safely, take all reasonable care for their own health and safety and always consider the health and safety of others who may be affected by their actions. Encourages active participation, cooperation , and consultation with all staff to promote and develop a healthy and safe workplace. Workplace inspections: Staff who visit client’s premises should ensure that they follow all workplace health and safety instructions provided by the client. Hazard identification and risk control: All staff are required to report any hazards and safety incidents as soon as they become aware of them. The organisation will take immediate actions to respond to incidents, assess risks and control hazards where applicable. Incidents: Staff are expected to immediately report any incidents that occur at work that may impact on an individuals’ health or safety. Prioritising the safety of all team members and clients is of utmost importance and making others aware if this is being violated in any way. |
| Conflict Resolution Policy and Procedures |
An organisation is committed to sustaining a positive work environment in which employees work constructively together. This policy is intended to:
|
Employees who are experiencing a work-related conflict or have a complaint are encouraged to refer to this policy and resolve the matter through discussions with their manager whenever possible. All requests for conflict resolution, complaints and appeals are fully investigated, and a reply is provided as quickly as possible. Penalty or retaliation against an employee who initiates conflict resolution, makes a complaint or participates in a problem resolution investigation will not be tolerated and will be subject to disciplinary action. It’s important to discuss any conflict first with the manager to get an amicable solution. For the team to work well together communication needs to be open and individuals must take responsibility for their communication style. |
| Confidentiality Policy | Ensure that confidentiality is maintained in relation to the organisation and client information where necessary. |
Keep the confidential information confidential and preserve its confidential nature. Don’t use, disclose or permit the use of confidential Information for any reason other than situations stipulated in the policy. This relates to keeping client information and data confidential as well as refraining from discussing organisational information in front of the client. |
| Quality Assurance Policy and Procedures | This policy and procedure is designed to ensure that organisation has an effective quality assurance approach and systematically evaluates its services to implement ongoing and continuous improvement. |
|
Code of Conduct
Purpose of the Code of Conduct: It is designed to outline the standard of behaviour expected from the employees of an organisation. Each and every organisation will have the core ethical behaviour and code of conduct that all staff are expected to adhere to and must follow.
Impact on teamwork: Having a code of conduct can give employees a structure to follow from the moment they join the company, reducing the chances of problems coming up and making the process of dealing with issues a lot easier should the worst occur.
Following are some of the most common code of conduct principles that most workplaces and organisations would adhere to:
- be inclusive: ensure that all internal and external customers are treated the same
- be honest: ensure honesty in all your business dealings with internal and external customers
- be accountable: promise what you say you will deliver
- be sustainable: ensure that sustainability plays an important part in any work activities that you undertake
- be professional: ensure that you act with integrity at all times.
Legislative requirements relevant to workplace
As a leader, you must be aware of the legislative requirements relevant to the workplace. The following section outlines some common legislative requirements.
WHS/OHS Legislation
WHS legislation covers all the WHS acts and regulations enacted by the States and Territories of Australia. The WHS Legislation comprises of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 and the Work Health and Safety Regulations 2011. Both pieces of legislation provide legal requirements for construction projects to comply with. Therefore, familiarisation is a must to be able to determine these requirements.
Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (WHS Act)
The WHS Act defines the broad policies regarding health and safety standards that should be apparent in the project, promoting the welfare, health, and safety of those who are in the construction project. The current WHS Act aims to harmonise the jurisdictional WHS laws so that work health and safety is nationally consistent between States and Territories, as they enact and enforce them under their jurisdiction.
Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (WHS Regulations)
The WHS Regulation 2011 is a set of regulatory guidelines stemming from the WHS Act 2011. The regulation sets out specific requirements to be met regarding a wide range of matters related to work health and safety, including construction work.
Australia's states and territories have their own work health and safety legislation based on the model WHS Act and WHS Regulation developed by Safe Work Australia. This helps with the aim of creating a consistent WHS standard across the country.
To help you identify the current WHS legislation covering your project, the table below lists the WHS Act and WHS Regulation of the states and territories of Australia as well as their respective regulatory body for work health and safety.
The regulations provide guidance around many aspects of working safely, for example around the duty of identifying hazards (Regulation 34), hierarchy of control measures (Regulation 36), duty to provide first aid (Regulation 42), managing risk of hearing loss from noises (Regulation 57), emergency procedures (Regulation 74) in the following state regulations:
- Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (ACT)
- Work Health and Safety Regulation 2017 (NSW)
- Work Health and Safety (National Uniform Legislation) Regulations 2011 (NT)
- Work Health and Safety Regulations 2011 (QLD)
- Work Health and Safety Regulations 2012 (SA)
- Work Health and Safety Regulations 2012 (TAS)
Anti-discrimination policy and legislations
In any workplace, discrimination and harassment are not tolerated. Workers should be treated fairly and should be given equal opportunities in the workplace.
Most workplaces include anti-discrimination policies, and it is important to be aware of what they include.
Unlawful workplace discrimination can occur when choosing who to employ or promote. Discrimination can also occur by favouring one employee over another on the basis of race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, marital status, carer responsibilities, pregnancy, religion, political opinion or national origin.
This video explains what is considered discrimination in the workplace:
Discriminating and harassing workers have an adverse effect on their:
- Personal health: mental, emotional, psychological, physical
- Social interaction and behaviour: social avoidance, isolation, fear, and distrust
- Work performance: lack of motivation, poor concentration, and lower productivity
Discriminating and harassing in the workplace is also illegal and punishable under the legislation and legal requirements of industrial relations. Therefore, you and your management are responsible for ensuring these things are not practised in the workplace. Thus, you should employ proactive measures that prevent them from taking place and processes that will help the aggravated parties in case they occur in the workplace.
Review the legislations related to discrimination and harassment
Legislations provide the legal requirements that people should comply with, in this case, to prevent discrimination and harassment from occurring in the workplace. Here are some of the legislation you can take a look into:
- Fair Work Act 2009 and Fair Work Regulations 2009
- Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986
- Australian Human Rights Commission Regulation 2019
- Age Discrimination Act 2004
- Disability Discrimination Act 1992
- Racial Discrimination Act 1975
- Sex Discrimination Act 1984
Create workplace discrimination and harassment policies
Your organisation or project should create policies that lay out the guidelines on avoiding discrimination and harassment and their indicators so that those in the workplace can identify if someone is being discriminated against or harassed. The policies should also have procedures on reporting discrimination and harassment in the workplace and the sanctions when proven true. You can use information, provided by the Australian Human Rights Commission, as a guide to help you and your management to create policies for your workers.
Raise awareness on workplace discrimination and harassment
This measure helps sensitise your workers that discrimination and harassment can happen if they are not aware of them. You can build awareness by providing interactive seminars on workplace discrimination and harassment. If applicable, you can also provide training to appropriate personnel, such as human resources and health and safety officers. You may also send regular e-mails and display posters on the topic to help cement their awareness.
Practise good workplace relationship and communication
Become a model for a safe and productive workplace by practising fair and equal treatment when working. When working at least at a supervisory level position, allow all your workers to grow. See the potential in all of your workers. to help you not discriminate against others. Call out those who may show signs of harassing others. Make them part of your meetings to ensure that no one is being harassed or discriminated against or, if someone is, the incident is raised, reported, and actioned upon.
Take incidents of discrimination and harassment seriously
You and your management should consider these incidents in a significant matter. Make sure that no case is neglected and all cases are given attention. Remember, management is accountable for the employees' and workers’ actions and is, therefore, liable for any incidents. Thus, you should handle incidents carefully to ensure it is resolved, both for the organisation’s and its workers’ sake.
These measures are proactive, meaning they are actively applied and done to prevent discrimination and harassment in the workplace, rather than just responding to the incident after it has occurred. This way, the workplace can become a safe and productive environment for all those under the project.
Your role as a leader is to inspire your team to achieve certain outcomes. This begins by ensuring both the team and individual goals are aligned with your organisation’s vision and overall strategy. Team members are more likely to be inspired by the organisation’s vision when their leader demonstrates passion and drive. This helps to create an environment where team members’ contribution and success directly impact the company objectives.
What is the difference between goals, objectives and KPIs?
Goals are statements describing what your team wants to achieve. Goals need to be clear, simple, and easy to understand and read.
Objectives are the steps your team takes to achieve the overarching goal. These should be SMART—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Bound.
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are specific individual and measured targets that tell you how you are tracking with regards to your goals and objectives. For example, if an objective is to increase sales by a certain amount, an associated KPI may be to increase calls to prospective customers by 15% in a specified time period.
So why is it important to set goals objectives?
If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there?Lewis Carroll
It is important to be clear about objectives when setting goals for yourself and your team. When these are clear, employees find it easier to stay focused and motivated on a task as they understand how it fits into the organisation's overall vision. When setting team or individual goals, they must be aligned with the organisation’s overall goals, be SMART goals and have associated KPIs attached to them to track progress. Documenting goals in a performance plan ensures they are easy to refer to when needed.
Begin by setting team goals that align with the organisation’s vision and goals. From there, you can set individual goals for team members, making sure that each individual’s goal also serves the overall team goal. It is a good idea to include team members in the process of goal setting.
What are SMART Goals
Use the SMART acronym to create effective goals for individuals and teams. The acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. A goal that incorporates these features will help to focus efforts and increase the chances of achieving the goal.
SMART goals are:
- Specific — Clearly defined to avoid any confusion
- Measurable — Have specific criteria that needs to be reached in order to measure progress towards the goal
- Achievable — Attainable, not impossible to achieve with current resources
- Realistic — Within reach, and relevant to your organisation’s goals
- Timely—Have well - defined time frames including a start and end date.
Your workplace or organisation may have a Communication Policy in place. If so, this exists to guide communication channels both within and outside of the organisation. For example, if you need to deal with another department, who is the most appropriate person to get in contact with first? Having these policies in place can reduce conflict and misunderstandings. The policy may also set the standard for communication styles with regards to what is considered appropriate and consistent with the organisation’s values.
Communication is a two-way street, and your communication style is the way in which you give and receive information. It is important to understand your own natural communication style. Being aware of your team members’ styles as well enables you to adjust the way you communicate depending on the individual, team or situation. This helps your message to be understood clearly, particularly important when communicating goals and objectives.
The Four Communication Styles
There are four common communication styles:
- Analytical
- Functional
- Intuitive
- Personal
No one communication style is inherently better than the others. However, it is useful to adapt and choose a communication style that best suits your audience and situation. Being flexible with your communication style allows you to customise your message depending on your audience and desired outcome.
The four communication styles can be described as:
- Analytical — Usually confident communicators who uses hard facts and data to convey information
- Functional — Communicators who uses step-by-step processes, guides and timelines to take control of the process
- Intuitive — Straight-to-the-point communicators and often big picture thinkers
- Personal — Communicators who value and develop interpersonal relationships, often using less formal language. They build strong relationships and are good listeners.
Watch this YouTube video for more information on these four communication styles.
As a leader, you will often be required to lead and facilitate a team with different cultural backgrounds or special needs. In the following section you will learn about some of the Key principles of cross-cultural communication and communication with individual with special needs.
Key principles of cross-cultural communication and communication with individual with special needs.
- Respect, openness, curiosity: be willing to take a risk and to move beyond one’s comfort zone. Be willing to be wrong, or at least to have one’s perspective altered or widened. You are not the centre of everyone’s universe: realise that one’s own culture is specific and study how it has affected one’s own world view – also how odd or foreign it may seem to others and how it may impact upon them.
- Culture, power, status: understand that cultures are often in a relationship of status, power and domination/subordination – that those who feel dominated often feel ignored and marginalised and those who dominate often do not recognise their privilege or power. When these power or status relationships change, there is often upheaval, fear, anger and anxiety.
- Learn from the others: with this understanding, be willing to learn as much as possible about others’ culture, as far as possible without judgment, but with respectful curiosity. This will often throw a new light on one’s own culture.
- Develop core skills: intercultural communication requires self-mastery, as we develop our willingness and ability to observe, listen, evaluate, analyse, interpret and relate with less judgment and more openness.
- Reap the inner dividends: this process will enrich you personally and professionally, as you gain in flexibility, adaptability, empathy and the ability to really ‘get’ what others experience and perceive, whether or not you agree with them.
- Reap the outer dividends: Deardorff defines intercultural competence as ‘the effective and appropriate behaviour and communication in intercultural situations’ and she explains that ‘… the individual can determine effectiveness while the appropriateness can only be determined by the other person – with appropriateness being directly related to cultural sensitivity and the adherence to cultural norms of that person’. This distinction is important but has very different implications depending upon whether the person attempting to be inter-culturally competent is part of the dominant, or the non-dominant culture in a situation. In our work, we deal with both these instances.
Various communication techniques
As a leader in an organisation you will be required to communicate to various audiences at any given point of time. These may include your colleagues, your team members, external clients, stakeholders, people from different cultural backgrounds and people with special needs.
Hence to make communication easy for audience at all levels and more understanding one should use various communication techniques to enhance communication skills.
Following are some of the communication techniques you can use in all situations:
- Use a normal tone of voice. Do not raise your voice unless asked to.
- Be polite and patient. Do not rush the conversation.
- Speak directly to the person rather than the person accompanying them.
- Ask the person what will help with communication. There are different ways to communicate.
- Don't pretend to understand. Let the person know you are having difficulty. Try asking yes or no questions.
- Be flexible. Reword rather than repeat anything that is not understood.
- Only refer to the person's disability if necessary or relevant.
- Offer assistance if it appears necessary but respect the person's wishes if they don't accept your offer.
- Avoid saying anything that implies the person with a disability is superhuman, courageous or special.
- Relax! Everyone makes mistakes. Apologise if you believe you have embarrassed someone.
When communicating with people with disabilities:
- emphasise individuality, not disability
- avoid portraying successful people with a disability as superhuman
- avoid emotive portrayals of people with a disability
- represent people with a disability as part of the community and in a variety of roles
- avoid stereotyping
- do not focus on a person’s disability unless it is important to the story
- avoid describing disability in medical terms
- broaden and deepen your understanding of disability issues
- use appropriate language.
Different methods of communication
| Method | Explanation: | Examples of Effective Use: |
|---|---|---|
| Verbal |
Verbal interactions include:
|
Effective use of verbal communication includes:
|
| Non-verbal |
Non-verbal interactions include:
|
Non-verbal communication supports verbal communication and infers deeper meaning of congruity and/or emphasis. This is effective in coaching session, negotiations and conflict situations. It is used with all visual interaction and communication. It is also used in noisy workplaces or communicating with a hard-of-hearing person. |
| Written | Using the written communication is important to maintain a record of any interaction. This can be by an electronic form or hard copy, such as email, letter, instant message, text, etc. |
Effective use of written communication includes:
|
Despite all best-laid plans, good leadership and having an inspired team, sometimes things go wrong. It is imperative to have contingency plans in place for when this happens so your team can continue to move forward. These are the situations where ‘managerial’ skills become important alongside leadership skills.
Some examples of situations where things can go wrong:
- A team member having difficulty with a task
- Safety hazards
- Somebody leaves the business - is there a succession and training plan in place?
- inappropriate behaviour from a team member
- Conflict within the team
- A team member takes unexpected leave.
Your organisation is likely to have policies and procedures to guide contingency plans for when things go wrong and prevent them occurring in the first place.
RACI Model/tool to plan contingency
A good way to plan for workplace contingencies is to use the project tool RACI.
What does the acronym RACI stand for?
- Responsible: this team member does the work to complete the task. Every task needs at least one Responsible party, but it’s okay to assign more.
- Accountable: this person delegates work and is the last one to review the task or deliverable before it’s deemed complete. On some tasks, the Responsible party may also serve as the Accountable one. Just be sure you only have one Accountable person assigned to each task or deliverable.
- Consulted: Every deliverable is strengthened by review and consultation from more than one team member. Consulted parties are typically the people who provide input based on how it will impact their future project work or their domain of expertise on the deliverable itself.
- Informed: These team members simply need to be kept in the loop on project progress, rather than roped into the details of every deliverable.
Purpose and benefits of using RACI when working on a project
RACI is a tool to organise team members per the goal of the project. It is used to allocate tasks and roles. At its core, a RACI matrix helps you set clear expectations about project roles and responsibilities. That way you don’t have multiple people working on the same task or against one another because tasks weren’t clearly defined on the front end.
A RACI matrix also encourages team members to take responsibility for their work or defer to someone else when needed. Essentially, you will remove personal judgment and politics from your process and focus on your team’s ability to act responsibly within the framework you’ve created. It informs the organisation about its employees’ workload and shows which role(s) are assigned to each person. For example, the organisation can see if someone has been placed in the responsible role too many times or not. In other words, does this person have a lot or a too few tasks to complete.
Use RACI for the successful completion of a project as everyone impacted is in the loop. This reduces miscommunication and increases productivity. So, if a task was incorrectly completed RACI tells you who was involved and ultimately accountable.
Here are a few scenarios when a RACI chart comes in handy:
- The decision-making or approval process could hold up the project.
- There’s conflict about task ownership or decision-making.
- The project workload feels like it’s not distributed evenly.
- There is an unplanned absence of a team member.
- Things are slipping through the cracks.
- It seems everyone is putting together a spreadsheet on the same data.
Summary
- There are many different leadership skills required in a workplace.
- Being a leader means providing people with the guidance and support they need to complete organisational goals.
- In the workplace, being a leader is more than just managing your work team.
- To become a good leader in your workplace, you must first identify your organisation's requirements for your position, such as policies and procedures, organisation values and culture.
- Your role as a leader is to ensure both the team and individual goals and objectives are aligned with your organisation’s vision and overall strategy.
- You must adequately establish the communication objectives of your work activities and seek assistance or clarification regarding these, as necessary.
- You must select the appropriate verbal and written communication method for reaching out to internal and external stakeholders.
- As a leader, you must always have a sound contingency plan to manage risks and respond to unexpected events.
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