Starting and handling your own company is a hard task, aside from that there are things that you always have to work on, you need to be an effective leader to your employees to guide them to be in the same goal as you have which is SUCCESS.
Leadership is very vital either in big organizations or in just a small team. Leaders from the root word “lead” play an important role in the success of a team. A leader should be knowledgeable and well trained in the field he leads to ensure proper guidance to his followers. A leader should have a clear vision of the set goals and gives proper expectations on what to expect from his followers to ensure that they will all have the same common goals to achieve.
Scandinavian Virtual Assistants were founded by the couple Arash Niavarani and Roselle Santos. They themselves as the owner and the leader of their own company ensure that they are the right leaders for their employees. There are characteristics that leaders should possess to be successful in their company and below are some of them.
*Self-aware, goal-oriented, and having a personal development
A person who is self-aware about his own capabilities and never stops developing himself is a good characteristic of a potential leader. The couple knows the importance of personal development, as the more that they know, the more they are effective. They are courageous to ensure that they endlessly equip themselves with the timely knowledge relevant to their field to success. They set a goal to achieve to ensure that they are able to meet them by learning and improving their knowledge. This is to ensure that their company is always on track and well-aware of the first-hand changes and innovations that they later share with their employees for them to be well-informed and educated too.
*Ethical and able to admit mistakes
A leader is a human too, a good characteristic of a true leader is being able to do the job in an ethical manner. They shouldn’t be afraid to admit when they made mistakes and come up with solutions in order to avoid any kind of repetition within the team. A good leader listens and solicits advice from his followers to have better decisions makings.
Being someone working under Scandinavian Virtual Assistants, there were some times that we often make little mistakes and the bosses make little mistakes too, if they have, they always apologize and admit they made mistake and address the issue to correct them immediately.
*Transformational and focusing on developing people
A quote of Tom Peters once said that “Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.” Yes, it is one of the best traits that a leader should have, he should be compassionate and shows the way by looking for potential in people and developing skills and knowledge to be a future leader.
Arash and Roselle always look into developing their people. They often give them training to enhance their knowledge and skills relevant to their job function like learning new languages training, skill enhancement training, and so on. They make sure to invest in their own people to deliver much better results.
*Practicing Cross-effective communication
A good characteristic of a true leader is being able to communicate with each of his followers through personal or group communication. He should be able to adjust and use correct communication styles in each personality of the followers to ensure that they are on the same page and they both understand the common goals they both want to achieve.
Arash and Roselle always make time to have a touch base with their employees, they ensure that they are updated on the status of the job is done and they leave an avenue for open communication with each staff in order to address any immediate concerns or hear them out. They also ensure to acknowledge their employees for a job well done and give proper recognition to recognize their hard work. Open communication between leader and their employees are important to strengthen relationships.
A good leader does not see himself as above others. They are always touching the ground and being with their followers every day as their mentors or to guide them in the right direction. Find good skills from the followers and enhance them to be future leaders. This is how Arash and Roselle implied themselves to be good leaders of their company. And their company deserved growth and recognition for their hard work.
Written By: Maria Nerizza Acero