Developing the great leader within

Life coach Natalie Gillam reveals how to develop your leadership skills.

In a rapidly growing economy like Dubai, where the employment market is booming, the best talent enjoys a wide choice of jobs with the biggest brands and for high salaries.

Business leaders who wish to thrive and grow will need to offer more to attract and retain their best people, thereby enabling them to leverage their talent, experience and knowledge capital.

If they can do this successfully, they will give their organisations a huge advantage - better people being developed and retained in the business also makes the culture one to which other good people will be attracted. It is a virtuous circle.

The challenge for leaders then, is how to focus their attention and energy in the right ways to create and sustain a working culture where excellence is inevitable. People will then want to work there because they know they will continue to learn to be successful and to develop their personal equity value.

It is a working environment in which people are constantly seeking and finding ways to innovate and learn and where leaders are providing inspiring vision and direction, together with solid values and principles which drive business priorities.

Ever since people organised themselves into communities, leaders have emerged to create shared vision, to focus the group's energy and resources and to provide direction and values on which the group makes important decisions. For decades, leaders and consultants have been writing about what makes the most successful leaders.

I have been working with large blue chip organisations for over 15 years and have coached CEOs and leadership teams; my experience plus years of training has allowed me to identify seven key disciplines that I have observed make the greatest leaders.

1. Be strong

A great leader takes responsibility, never blames anyone else and encourages others to take responsibility for themselves, their decisions and their actions. Failing in something is always seen as useful learning.

Encouraging people to attempt new things, to innovate even if there is risk, is vital to growing new markets and developing better processes. Being strong also means making tough, sometimes risky decisions and sticking with making them work, backing down when you are wrong, and always encouraging others to challenge you and each other.

Strong leaders instinctively mistrust the 'yes-men' and seek those who have the courage to challenge and think differently.

2. Be principled

Great leaders demonstrate integrity and humility, being absolutely clear with people about what they stand for. Ghandi said that you must be the change you want to see in the world. Doing the right things requires self-discipline and courage, as these will not always be the easy options.

It may be easier to blame others, to give in to your ego need to be seen to be right, but strong leaders know that the long term benefits of how you are perceived by others if you stick to what is right, far outweigh vanity.

In order to do this, great leaders actually think about their values; they consider the needs of the business, the people, the customers, the community and they reflect frequently on what is truly important. They can then be a shining example, sticking to these priorities and principles.

3. Be clear

Organisations are more easily mobilised and motivated where there is clear and compelling vision and specific, meaningful outcomes - great leaders see the big picture, articulate the important outcomes in realistic, specific detail and make sure everyone else does too.

If people all have a shared idea of where they are going and exactly how they fit into the bigger picture, making a valued contribution, they will be motivated and energised and also they will easily be able to choose to do the right things to get there.

Muddled thinking, vague communication of organisational goals or too much generalisation, such as 'be the best' will not enable the highest levels of achievement.

4. Be inspiring

Great leaders lead by influence not authority. Fear can compel people to do things but rarely inspires little more than compliance. Leaders need to be compelling so people want to do the right things, be the light that others aspire to follow rather than being a dictator, leading by respect and the strong desire to be like the organisation's key role models.

Being a role model is a huge responsibility since people will follow more what you do than what you say - be late to meetings and people will conclude that is an ok behaviour; cut corners and people will follow; be rude about your clients and others will do so too.

5. Be a coach

The leader in a modern organisation knows to spend a large proportion of time coaching and developing others.

By investing in your people, you ensure that you create more great role models, advocates for core values and principles, focus for projects, and above all, leaders for the future.

Your personal coaching will make those talented people feel great, it will build their strength and you will all learn more from each other, exploring ideas and thinking.

As a coach, you will not be doing things for others; you will be developing their ability to do more. In this way, you will make your organisation stronger and deeper rather than dependent on you - grow your business rather than just controlling it.

6. Be creative

In a world where power is in information and innovation, it is vital that leaders are able and willing to try new things, being prepared to fail sometimes. Great leaders always encourage innovation and new ideas, they learn from everything they experience, and they value diverse ideas within a framework of core values and priorities.

Without new thinking, your organisation risks being left behind, not showing itself to be capable of staying ahead of the pack - which is where the best talent will always be attracted to work.

7. Be collaborative

A great leader will invest heavily to create and sustain a high performance culture, where people want to be successful, work to-gether productively and collaboratively, and where the individual's success does not detract from the team and organisation's greater success.

Competition should stim-ulate greater achievement rather than harming team progress. Anyone can be competitive but it takes greater skill and discipline to be collaborative and it is through collaboration that the greatest gains can be made. It is also what people always report to be key to their feeling happier and more fulfilled.

All of these disciplines will make a real difference to your retaining the best people and attracting the best new talent to your organisation.

Natalie Gillam works for NG Coaching, an executive leadership coaching company based in Dubai and London. NG Coaching provides executive coaching and leadership masterclasses in the UAE. To find out more about how NG Coaching could help you and your organisation, contact Natalie Gillam by email on This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

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