Effective leadership is not about the title, the corner office and being locked away in meetings with the great and the good. Effective leaders are not self-important, indeed the best are often self-effacing, but they have something about them.

Some will call it charisma but it is more about caring about people, especially people on their team. The best leaders give their time to their teams; they share the ups and the downs. In being there for their staff they will probably have to fit their own work in outside normal working hours. It is hard work being a leader but you need to expect, and deliver, more of yourself than you expect of your people. Do that quietly, without fuss and people will respond.

Managing by Expectation

Having high, but achievable, expectations of individuals is important; I have been described as using “management by expectation”. I make no apology for that as it works; many people do not fully appreciate their own capability. The effective leader will work with each individual to set personal expectations to help them achieve their potential. Such leaders will be firm but fair; they will raise issues quietly and discreetly and in return expect the individual to take the lessons on board and deliver their own self-improvement. I get huge pleasure from seeing people blossom and grow professionally and personally as a result.

I am particularly reminded of my relationship with a senior IT specialist; he was good, had great vision and was personable. Everyone liked him but his colleagues were enormously frustrated because they could never get him to properly document the technical requirements. It got in the way of their ability to deliver; I got many reluctant complaints about him. I took him on one side on several occasions, pushing him to improve, but he was one of those people who seems to have an inability to produce the paperwork. It was getting to the point that it was going to stop him progressing further in his career or indeed on the project. He made slow progress but I had to give him a really hard time in one to one meetings and really get on his case. Fortunately, he was good or I would have replaced him. I had to tell him some very hard truths more than once; he frequently left my room visibly shaken. Yet later, after I had moved on I discovered he was describing me as “the best boss he had ever had”.

So, being an effective leader who cares for their staff is not about being soft. Being a good leader is about engendering respect by being fair, more demanding of one’s self than your staff and making expectations and objectives clear. Then it is surprising how much you can ask of your staff and how far they will go to support you.