You could be a CXO level leader or a fresher, top priorities of any leader is people.

As a leader you are expected to deliver results and lead people to achieve organisational goals. In order to be effective as a leader, your people skills should be exemplary, after all, it’s the team who would eventually deliver.

I have been a people leader for last 15 years. I saw my fair share of challenges with people, and learnt my lessons as well. Here I am sharing 5 habits of the people leaders that makes them stand out. As you go through them, you would probably see some faces coming up whom you thought were great people leaders.

Habit 1 : Empathy

Great people leaders show empathy, not just to their teams but everyone around them. It essentially means you are creating a culture where people feel at ease. They feel comfortable sharing their personal and professional worries and they feel heard.

Success Tips to show Empathy at workplace

1. Always listen and be available to talk.
2. Don’t Judge or criticise – Rather try to understand the Don’t Assume anything.
3. Be Present – It’s difficult to assess and empathise on emails or virtual. Better to setup physical meetings asap if someones needs you.

Habit 2 : Continuous Development

Best leaders don’t stay in their comfort zone, rather they get out of it and lead the way. Technology, work place ethics, policies and procedures, everything is continuously changing and leading in such an environment becomes challenging. To overcome these challenges, a good leader is always developing itself.

Success tips to be in a continuous development mode.

1. Be active on social media – should know about your industry.
2. Read good books, if reading is not possible, can listen to some good podcasts
3. Be ready to change and innovate wherever possible, embrace new technology.

Habit 3: Be Proactive

It might sound simple but one of the important leadership traits is being proactive. It essentially means being on top of the things, keeping the actionable and follow up lists ready. Making sure everything that’s important is kept a track of. Sometimes it’s important to see things from future perspective and try to anticipate what could go wrong and making sure to keep a track.

Success tips for being proactive

1. Be organised – both professionally and personally.
2. Make daily routines.
3. Create To Dos, To Follow ups and To Delegate Lists.

Habit 4: Be a Mentor / Teacher

If you look at the learning pyramid below, you will see that a human mind can retain 90% of their learning by teaching it to someone else. Being a mentor or a teacher to your team, opens up many dimensions. You can be a great leader when you make more leaders and help your team in their career progression.

Success Tips to be a good mentor

1. Make sure your actions match your words.
2. Offer constructive criticism, along with solutions.
3. Offer leadership opportunities to your team.

Habit 5 : Be Data driven

Leaders who are good with data have an edge over others. Being data driven doesn’t mean that you are always crunching numbers, it just means that you review data before taking any decision. Data can be mined in any form or factor, but it allows leaders to see things objectively.

Sometimes, data can give you information which you were completely oblivion about.

Success tips to be data driven.

1. Start looking at things objectively.
2. Create data reports wherever possible and review them regularly.
3. Have regular catch ups with your teams.

I hope the above habits and tips will help you become a better leader. I would love to discuss your ideas and thoughts on it. And if you feel somebody can get help with this, please don’t hesitate to share amongst your friends.