Being a leader in today’s corporate world is something of an abstract term. Leaders are people who manage projects and make the final decisions. These people are full of everyday stress and pressure, often taking most of the blame for poor performance and taking far less credit if the work was done well.
Project managers, the modern leaders of major world corporations, face difficulties on every turn. Just because they are in an executive position, doesn’t mean that their job is easier or less important than those of the team members. What are some of the most dangerous difficulties that leaders may face on their way to personal and corporate success?
- Developing management skills
- Self-motivation
- Balancing team and company goals
- Development through coaching
- Gaining trust and respect
Just because they are “leaders” doesn’t mean that project managers and team leaders know how to manage properly. Job delegation is something that requires time and experience to be mastered.
Knowing which team member is best suited for every type of task that might come is essential in successfully finishing the project. It’s important for leaders to avoid beginner’s mistakes as best as they can because that can lead to loss of profit, trust, and respect.
Management skills can be amended by watching TED talks online, visiting leadership seminars and conferences or simply by practical leadership experience All of these are suitable for training a leader to increase success.
Anytime someone has to motivate themselves can be tricky for everyone involved. People who follow leaders need to be sure that their executives are ready and able to lead them. This is why leaders often have to hide their insecurities and lack of personal motivation.
There is much more at stake than just personal energy and mood. Self-motivation is something that comes naturally to leaders who believe in their projects and love the job position they have been assigned to. They know what they are doing is for the good of the company and their team will lead the project to success.
Losing that motivation mid-project can be dangerous no matter how able or experienced the team may be. Without a leader, the team may not know how to proceed and finish a project on time. This could lead to leaders having to fake their own motivation just to keep everyone else productive.
The fact of the matter is those team goals are rarely aligned with the company’s own goals in the project. This means that every team member may have a different set of personal goals, opinions, and skills to put on the table regardless of what the company actually wants.
It’s up to the leader to take up a leadership role and drive the project forward despite differences. Some team members might be good at designing while others are good at coding or analyzing. Some of them might even decide to use BestWritingAdvisor.com for writing and editing needs. The point is that the leader will always have to lower the company’s expectations and goals while heightening the ones set by his team members who might not be ambitious enough to do something extraordinary.
One of the best and most stressful parts of being a leader is having people that work for you and trust you. Many of today’s leaders struggle with the fact that team members are just ordinary workers and not leaders themselves – they are there to follow your instructions and develop through teamwork.
That teamwork is the main component of what makes a project tick, and it’s one of the reasons that leaders are so essential to completing them. Every leader has a responsibility towards his or her members just like a parent and a child.
Coaching them and teaching them what’s right and wrong in their work is one of the most important parts of working together. One of your team members might be an intern who is working on writing a dissertation or thesis – how can you help them get through it and be productive with the team as well? While coaching is very beneficial, it can also be stressful and sometimes detrimental if the leader doesn’t possess the necessary people skills to teach.
Leaders are nothing without the trust and respect of their executives, coworkers and team members. Someone without respect in a place of authority can do more damage than good in the long run. Building up respect takes years of work and experience in the field, none of which come easy or cheap.
Leaders have to work on themselves first before asking others to follow, which is why there are fewer leaders than experts. It's much easier and safer to do your own job and lay low. Being a leader takes much more from an individual, which is why leaders must have the complete trust of their team members.
Just because leaders face difficulties, doesn’t mean they aren’t having fun. Natural born leaders can’t see themselves doing anything less than leading stressful projects with misfit teams and emerging on top. Consider taking up a leadership position if you ever have the chance and see for yourself how difficult but rewarding it can be. You might just like what you discover once you take up that mantle for the first time.
