Requirements of Effective Leadership

Five core leadership skills required for effective leadership are:

(i) Vision: Vision is crucial for leaders during times of change. Leaders recognise the radical organisational changes taking place today as opportunities to achieve total quality.

(ii) Empowerment: Leader empower employees to assume ownership of problems or opportunities and to be proactive in implementing improvements and making decisions in the best interests of the organisation.

(iii) Intuition: Leaders usually follow their intuition. They must be prepared to make difficult decisions even in the face of uncertainty and change and anticipate the future.

(iv) Self-understanding: Self-understanding requires the ability to look at one’s self and then identify relationships with employees and within the organisation. It requires an examination of one’s weaknesses as well as strengths.

(v) Value congruence: Value congruence occurs when leaders integrate their values into the company’s system. Values are basic assumptions and beliefs about the nature of the business, mission, people and relationships of an organisation. Values include trust and respect of individuals, openness, teamwork, integrity and commitment to quality.