An effective leader should be someone who can make everybody in the
team contribute the best that he or she can do.
Some people suppose that being such a leader only requires strong
leadership; however, I think this oversimplifies the situation.
Actually, besides leadership, a successful leader should also have a way to make members feel that
they are part of decision-making process and this will benefit the whole team in different ways.
If team members feel that they have influence, they will become more active
so that the team is more likely to see things in perspective
and come up with better solutions to problems and issues.
However, if leaders act as bossy dictators,
members are unlikely to let them know that they have good ideas even if they are asked to share.
My father is a very successful manager and he often asks advice
and suggestions from each and every of members
of the department, both at meetings or in private. Therefore, everyone gets
involved in discussions and my father
always gets enough references that he needs.
Cooperation is always a necessary condition for victory, and team members
who feel that they are concerned are
more likely to carry out the plan that is partly made by themselves.
The French National Football Team here can
serve as a good example to prove that members will not cooperate if they are not respected.
They did poorly in the 2010 World Cup due to their internal conflicts—the coach
and all members thought so differently and thus no one played according to the plan.
Although the team did not lack talented and experienced players,
they went back home without scoring.
A lead who allows everyone to talk can even make the team stronger
than it is supposed to be, because team members will even contribute their social
connections to help their own team succeed. Different jobs require various
resources and skills, and team members cannot always handle everything, so they may
need assistance from people outside the team, thus, friends or family members
of team players may come in handy.
There was a boy who worked as an intern in my father’s department.
Although the boy was not officially a member of the team, my father asked him
for advice from time to time, and the boy finally surprised my father
by asking his uncle, a government officer, to authorize a project that
my father had attempted to carry out for a long time.
If a leader makes everyone feel that he or she is part of decision making,
members will be more devoted and will contribute their best to the team.
Thus, the leader will become an effective and successful
one even if he or she is not the most skillful one.