Characteristics of Effective Leaders: Organizational Psychology

Hey there everybody, and welcome to this brief presentation on the 14 characteristics of effective leaders. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. Now y' all know I love mnemonic devices and this presentation is no exception. So to remember the 14 characteristics of effective leaders, I created the mnemonic device focuses leaders. So let's take a look at what that stands for. The first one is focused. Good leaders are focused and goal directed. It's really hard to know what to do if your leader is not providing direction. If your leader is wishy washy or scattered all over the place, you may not be able to discern. Okay, exactly what do you want me to do right now? So focus. Goal direction. And that having a mission or a vision that is guiding what they're doing can be helpful. Good leaders are open minded. They recognize that they don't have all the answers. And they recognize the importance of getting multiple people's input on different situations, on different ways to approach situations. So open minded leaders are willing to hear out their subordinates as well as their colleagues. Good leaders are communicative. They tell people what it is they want, when they want it, by how they want it done, and why it's important. At the very least, that helps people know what to do. If they're guessing, you know, well, he said he wants this report. I don't know if he wants it like today or next week. It leaves a lot of ambiguity and creates a lot of anxiety and stress. So go back to those basic questions, who, what, when, where, why and how. And answer as many of those as possible for your team when you are asking them to do things. But communication doesn't just go one way. Communication is both ways. So good leaders also listen to what their subordinates and their colleagues have to say. They communicate. They don't assume that people know what needs to be done. Good leaders are unifying. People in a team need to feel like they belong. They need to understand what their role is in making the machine run, so to speak. So a good leader will unify and will help people view each other's differences as strengths and opportunities to synergize. Good leaders are self aware. They recognize their strengths. They recognize their weaknesses. They recognize when they're having a good day. And they recognize times when maybe they made a mistake or they were unusually grumpy to somebody and they might need to apologize or explain what's going on. So they are self aware and they are able to model that for other people. Good leaders are engaged. It is really easy to armchair quarterback to rule or try to lead from your office, but when you do that, you miss a lot of the nuances. And I've worked in multiple places where C level executives would decide that a change needed to be made and they'd make sweeping changes would without considering the impact it would have or they assumed that they knew the impact it would have because of what the situation was like 20 years ago when they were line staff. Well, things change. So an engaged leader is actually down there and interacting with people. And when they see something that needs to be done, they're doing it. They're not too good to pitch in. Engaged leaders are willing to recognize that things change and assess how everything that they do impacts everything else. Good leaders are servants. Now it sounds a little weird, but think about it. A good leader is going to mentor. A good leader is going to help enrich and educate staff. Staff. A good leader is going to advocate for people to help them get promoted, to help them get raises, to help them get what they need. A good leader is going to make sure do what is needed to make sure that people are in a safe and nurturing environment. A good leader leads by example. They don't just sit at their desk all day long and assume everybody's going to do what they're supposed to do. If they want their staff to work hard, they work hard. If they want their staff to be punctual, they're punctual. If they want you, you get where I'm going with this. So a good leader is not going to say, well, I've done all that, you know, I've, I've run the ropes course. It's time for me to just coast. A good leader is actually down there and modeling what they want to be done. A good leader, for example, may model effective communication. Maybe there's conflict between two different departments or something. And a good leader may step in and model assertive communication and problem solving skills instead of, you know, grumbling and back talking and pitching a fit, you know, so they are showing by example, this is how we handle conflict. This is how we reach compromise. Good leaders are emotionally intelligent. They are able to identify and deal with, manage their own emotions, but they're also able to identify, empathize and validate the emotions of others. They are able to recognize that subordinates above all are humans. And we have lives outside of the group. Whether it's, you know, a work group or a family group or what have you. There are lots of different aspects to our lives. And an emotionally intelligent leader can recognize when someone is experiencing distress and intervene appropriately. Good leaders are adaptable. Things change, the needs of stakeholders change, the needs of people in the group may change. And a good leader is always scanning and saying, okay, is everything humming along or are we starting to experience some stress in one aspect or another and they're able to drop back in punt, so to speak. They're also adaptable to external situations. For example, in 2020 in behavioral health, we went from almost always doing intensive outpatient and outpatient services in clinic in a face to face setting, to providing the majority of those services online. We adapted to, to the needs of the individual to the needs of the stakeholders. In light of the pressing pandemic concerns, those companies that didn't adapt didn't end up surviving most of the time. The same thing is true. You can look back at some of the big behemoth corporations from the 70s and 80s that you thought would live, you know, go on forever as organ as organizations and they've filed bankruptcy or gone out of business because they didn't adapt to the online environment. Good leaders recognize changes in stakeholder needs reg recognize changes in regulatory issues or the landscape of their situation. And they view it as a challenge. And they say to themselves, all right, we've been doing it this way forever, however, that's not going to be successful anymore. How can we adapt? How can we morph in order to accomplish our goals in this new situation? Good leaders are decisive. And this kind of goes along with focused and goal directed. When a leader is focused and goal directed, they know where they're going. They have a mission, they have a vision, they, they know what they want to achieve. Decisive means, okay, we're actually going to do it. And they make decisions instead of saying, well, you know, there are several options and we'll think about them and pondering. They're faced with a situation, they get the facts, they make a decision. It's not always going to be the right decision, but a good leader, when they make a wrong decision, is willing to own up to that and go, well, that didn't work out so good. Let's take a, take a look at this again and figure out how to correct our course. And they make decisive moves instead of being wishy washy. Good leaders are empowering and motivational. They want to encourage and inspire their subordinates to, to be all they can be. To quote an old slogan, and this is an excellent aspect of a good leader. Instead of oppressing their subordinates and keeping them, you know, as line staff or feeling intimidated or Threatened by their subordinates. Good leaders often surround themselves with people who have skills and abilities and talents that they don't or even some that they do. Yet they are not threatened by those. They want to nurture people. They come from a place, a mentality of abundance so they can encourage people to grow and, and become what they want to be. Good leaders don't hold people back either. You know, you may have a really good employee, well, yeah, you'd probably like to hold onto them forever but, but a good leader is going to motivate that person to apply for those promotions, apply for those transfers, do what they need to do in order to grow as an individual and as a professional. Good leaders are respectful, recognizing they're not going to agree with everybody all the time, but they acknowledge each person's experiences and perceptions. And good leaders are stable. They operate from a wise mind place instead of an emotional mind. And they're very consistent, you know, what to expect with those leaders. It's not a guessing game. Is this person going to come in and be, you know, all over the place, wishy washy? Is this person going to show up at all? A good leader is consistent. They are there. And a lot of good leaders I've, I use the mnemonic craves when I talk about secure attachments. But a lot of good leaders nurture secure attachments with their team. They are consistent in their presentation. They are responsive to the needs of their team. They give positive attention. You know, that goes with being empowering and motivational. They validate how, how people feel. They encourage and support their staff. How awesome would it be if your supervisor or your leader embodied those characteristics? How much more would you look? More would you look forward to going to work if your supervisor, if your leader embodied those characteristics? So on to those journal prompts. Which of these characteristics is a current strength that, that you have? Give an example of how you have demonstrated each one in the past month. And how can you develop each of these characteristics that you do not currently have? You know, maybe you recognize that you are not as engaged as you could be with, with your team. So how could you increase that engagement more in depth? Resources can be found on the website. Motivating teams can be found at allce.comorg psych teams burnout prevention can be found at allce.com exhaustion and trauma informed skills for supervisors can be found at TIC Supervision.