Tips to Be a More Effective Leader at Work

How many times do you come home from work thinking your boss is a real jerk, or talk to someone else leaving work and hear them exclaim "I hate my boss!"?

Are you a boss yourself? Want to avoid people hating you? Want your employees to respect you and work hard (and possibly even be cheerful doing so)?

Effective leaders foster good teams, collaboration and high productivity. Here are a few simple tips to help you be a more effective leader.

1. Learn that you are only as good as the people working for you.

It is impossible to do everything yourself. If it wasn't, you wouldn't be a boss with people reporting to you who help you do your job.

The most imperative thing to learn is that you are only as good as the people reporting to you. If they screw up, you are ultimately responsible. The better job your employees do, the better you look. Conversely, the worse they do, the worse you'll look!

2. Understand the difference between positional authority and earned respect.

Imagine you wrote a memo for your company, and asked your boss to review it prior to distribution. Now imagine your boss changed the word "happy" to "glad" in a sentence, and stated s/he was doing so "because I'm a director, and I can". How would that make you feel?

Effective leaders understand that they command people not because of their title, position or rank, but because they have earned the respect of their employees or teammates. People may follow your orders because they must, simply because you out-rank them, but they won't do a great job for you and will likely be less effective in the long run.

Your goal should be that your employees do a good job because they are happy employees and want the whole team to succeed.

3. Foster -- don't force -- collaboration.

A good leader encourages collaboration among team members and other departments as a way to improve efficiency, get more done and share best practices. However, forcing collaboration where it's unnecessary only creates more work and frustrates people.

4. Praise in public; criticize in private.

Nothing tears down self-esteem and camaraderie quicker than public, pointed criticism. On the flip side, few things are more appreciated than public praise of a job well done. Be sure to offer sincere praise when employees do a good job, and be sure to praise them in front of others.

If constructive criticism is necessary, be sure to offer that in private. Another good rule is to offer two positives for each negative comment. (I have to give credit here to my boyfriend. He is a big believe in these principles.)

5. Choose battles wisely.

In other words, learn to discern when to fight and when to give in. It helps if you formulate a set of guidelines or morals for yourself -- things you will and will not tolerate. If you fight tooth-and-nail on every issue with which you disagree, you will just frustrate others and be thought of as difficult.

But by discerning when an issue is important enough to argue about and which issues you can let slide, you will be more likely to win the battles you really need to win.

These are only a few principles to live by to be a more effective leader. It is important to be open-minded, compassionate, somewhat flexible but exercise discipline when necessary. Most importantly, you must listen to those you lead in order to help them achieve their best, which in turn will make you look great!