What is good leadership? How to be a good leader?

Josefine Campbell
February 21, 2023

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This article is about what good leadership is and how to be a good leader. It is an introduction made with new leaders in mind. It is a basic intro to good management. But there are many suggestions for what good leadership is, what is yours?

Unfortunately, it is quite normal to become a manager without any further introduction to the management craft. So, for many new leaders, becoming a leader is a huge challenge. Management is also not something you can learn just by reading. And leadership skills are not something you are born with. It’s something you must learn and constantly practice.

An introduction and some good advice can sometimes be a great help. So, here’s a suggestion on what good leadership is from us.

What is good leadership?

Linda Bølling has 25 years of experience as a manager, including from NNE, which is a subsidiary of Novo Nordisk. Today, like me, she works as a management coach. Therefore, we talked about what good leadership is. Our common complaint is that there are of course many different ways to be a good leader. Therefore, it is important that you are a leader in a way that is in accordance with your own qualities and values. Here are some tips that everyone can use. The video is in Danish. Therefor, remember to put on subtitles.

The leadership triangle

Leadership is many things: You can easily be a manager without having direct staff responsibility, for example as a project manager or team coordinator. Staff responsibility is often the way we define leaders and where the management task can become personally challenging. Perhaps because staff responsibility is about relations between people.

When you look at the three corners of the management triangle, there are three questions you can ask yourself and that explains the difference between the three corners.

Leadership: How do I set direction and lead the way?
Business: How do I manage my resources and responsibilities?
Personal Leadership: How do I become the best version of myself?

Three great tips about leadership

I have met many talented people, including leaders, who had a hard time with the part of the leadership triangle that is about business. This is the part where you as a leader must manage your resources, in relation to responsibilities and tasks – including your employees. It is a great help if you develop the right skills and get some management tools. But not everyone gets leadership development when they first become a leader. Therefore, here are three good tips for those of you who are new to leadership.

Create a space where your employees can solve their tasks and develop their potential. You need to find the right balance between autonomy and control. It must be adapted to the individual employee’s level of competence and experience. An inexperienced employee needs more instruction and control than an experienced one.
Make a clear framing. Remember to be clear in your briefs when handing over tasks. Much value is lost when the task is not understood. It is your responsibility as a manager that your employee has understood what you are saying.
Be sure to provide ongoing feedback. It is not enough to make it to the performance review. Your feedback should be ongoing, constructive and directed towards behaviors that can be changed. It must take place in a safe space where the employee does not feel attacked. When people feel attacked or threatened, it triggers the stresshormone adrenaline and then shuts down their frontal lobes. This means that the employee does not take in what you say.

For many, the three advices will require elaboration in practice. Because: “How do you give clear briefs when handing over a task?”. I could write a whole article about that. Write to me if you have any questions or need more elaboration than the one you find in the video.

You need to lead yourself

A very important point in my and Linda’s conversation is that in order to lead others, you must be able to lead yourself. It is a lifelong journey to develop oneself. You should continuously practice managing your own thoughts and feelings so that you don’t get knocked off your feet by all the challenges you may face as a leader. Of course, it is optimal to get professional sparring from an executive coach, but not everyone gets professional coaching. So, here are a few questions for you to reflect on:

1. What values and qualities do I stand for?
2. As a leader, how can I be a role model?
3. What strengths and personal challenges do I have? For example, you may have a temper, a pleaser, be confused, or so emotionally involved that it can be difficult to accommodate other people’s problems. You have to be able to handle that to be a really good leader that others want to follow.

If you would like to receive a mini-guide in management and be updated when I post new articles and videos please, sign up for my mailing list. Of course, your email is not shared with others. Our vision is to help people don’t just to perform but, sparkle. This, by unlocking the power of personal energy in all organizations to create long-term value in a sustainable way.

Author, speaker, and executive coach, Josefine Campbell coaches, trains and advises leaders and talents in global organisations such as Novo Nordisk and the Carlsberg Group. She has +20 years of business experience and is a former External Lector at Copenhagen Business School and quadruple Danish Champion in jiu jitsu.

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