Why is leadership so important?

Peter Drucker, the legendary academic and business consultant, once said “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” He had spent most of his professional life studying management and leadership and came to view the availability of the latter as the single most important aspect of business life. He also argued that identifying future leadership potential was one of the most challenging aspects of business life.
In this article, we analyse the importance of great leadership and discuss methods of attracting it to your company.

Why is leadership so important?

1. Leaders inspire others

Perhaps the greatest attribute of a leader is the capacity to inspire others. Skilfully communicating a vision and tactfully guiding its execution is how leaders elicit the best work from an organisation. They will expend time and effort in gaining insights into their team’s talents and personalities in order that each member can be deployed where he or she is most effective and productive. Leaders also understand the centrality of employee engagement to an organisation’s growth and they are able to harness the energy and industry of workers to increase productivity. A business’s human resources are its most important and expensive assets. A leader can make sure that this investment is rewarded.

2. Leaders instil confidence and loyalty

Allied with this talent is the leader’s ability to inspire confidence and loyalty in staff. He or she, by way of encouragement and positive guidance, can transform a merely satisfactory employee into a motivated evangelist or brand ambassador who will help to attract and retain new customers and, of course, potentially increase revenue and grow your business.

3. Leaders combine inspiration with industry to achieve goals

A leader has vision, creativity and imagination and these qualities are grounded in sound judgement and decisiveness. This means that in addition to having broad ideas for your company, he or she has the practicality and strategic acumen to develop a costed and timetabled plan for successfully realising a project. Lateral thinking coupled with efficiency similarly ensure that any problems which may arise will be solved professionally and in a timely fashion.

How do I identify a potential leader?

Occasionally an individual may be so obviously possessed of the characteristics of leadership that his or her appointment is of clear benefit to your firm. More usually, however, you will need to allocate significant resources to the search for leadership candidates. This has traditionally involved the engagement of expensive head-hunters and recruitment consultants but increasingly companies are turning to technological solutions which can save valuable time and money. One such solution is offered by Big 5 Assessments whose services can be found at www.big5assessments.com

Big 5 Assessments is a leading global provider of cost-effective recruitment solutions. Using sophisticated and proven psychometric criteria, the advanced software prompts employers with a series of questions about potential or existing employees. It then produces a report or leadership assessment based upon the application of psychometrics to the answers supplied.

Simple and intuitive to use, the software delivers detailed insights into a candidate’s personality and suitability for leadership roles. It offers suggestions as to which skills are strongest and which need work and refinement. An individual may, for example, be an adept motivator of others but perhaps less skilled at decision-making. Big 5 Assessments will give tips for nurturing the former while enhancing the latter.

Recruiting potential leaders is a core strand of any business strategy. Equipped with the advanced solutions provided by Big 5 Assessments, companies can be confident of achieving a consistent quality of hire and of finding the best and brightest leaders of the future.

About the Author: nikkyvb

Nikky van Bommel is the Marketing Director for Big 5 Assessments and has worked in the Psychometric Testing industry for over 10 years. Nikky is responsible for all marketing and social media for the organisation.