Every successful organisation is run by effective leadership. But one of the rarest things in modern organisations is effective leadership, explaining why many organisations especially in Africa collapse shortly after they open shop or remain stunted. Fortunately, through research and using our 22 years experiences in entrepreneurship and leadership coaching, we have developed these six principles that those intending to be effective leaders can apply and get there faster.

Below are six of some of the most important things effective leaders do every day.

Innovativeness and creativity.

Every effective leader is a strategic thinker, visionary and thinks long term.  They generate great ideas through the exercise of alternative thinking skills and influence others to work together to achieve group or common objectives in the interest of the people they lead. In today’s highly competitive world, no great leader can remain relevant without the ability to be innovative and out of the box thinking skills. If you are to be effective at leadership, you must be creative and learn to embrace alternative thinking in finding solutions to staff and company challenges/problems.

Develops self and others.

Continuous learning and self-improvement are traits of all great and effective leaders. They develop and regularly upgrade their capacities in three areas: their worldview, knowledge about the people they lead and the industry they operate in or their area of expertise. You cannot give what you do not have. Every leader seeking to be effective beyond ordinariness, or one learning to be an excellent one, must endeavour to develop him or herself first for bigger roles and also help those around him or her to grow their potential.

Human beings will get attracted to individuals who help them to realise their full potentials. As a leader, always get interested in knowing the next transitional phase of your area of expertise or where your team members intend to be in, say five years. After realising this, help them achieve their dreams.

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Focus on people.  A true leader makes a conscious effort to know in detail the background of their followers. This entails knowing their abilities, weaknesses, what excites them among others before focusing on the company’s desire to accumulate profits. It takes the people to make profits for the company and the best way to make money, is to concentrate more on pleasing the money makers first. Thus, they seek first to understand their followers than being understood.

Inspire trust. A leader should be able to ensure that his team members fully know that he or she is with them in every situation and that all members will be treated fairly in all circumstances. A leader can achieve this by walking the talk and talking the walk. In other words, a leader should be a man or a woman of his or her words. He must be without a doubt authentic. Integrity is key in leadership. When team members know that they will be treated or compensated fairly for their actions, it motivates and makes them dream even more. And all effective leaders know that if they were to choose between integrity and competence in one ability to influence others, integrity should be chosen.

Systems thinker and long-range perspective. A leader needs to develop the ability to implement the vision of the company with a futuristic viewpoint. He or she must anticipate the resultant effect of every actions taken now. This rare skill must be demonstrated in every decision making say staff recruitment, acquisition of vehicles, loans, cooperation with other companies and how all these will affect the running of the business now and in the future. In other words, effective leaders are system thinkers. This skill determines whether a given company will be a participant or a spectator in the market tomorrow.

Challenges the status-quo. Successful leaders are those who are uncomfortable with existing state of affairs. Such leaders are always on the lookout for how to better or improve the processes of the organisations. They are always bold to make decisions or ask the hard questions such as; what needs to be improved, what are the company risks now and, in future, how do we navigate the challenges? They simply develop the capacity to question the reasons behind every decision and creatively look for better and faster ways of getting results.

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