5 levels of leadership that a boss must travel

Nobody is born knowing how to be a leader. The ability to guide, and do it to the right place, is learned year after year and under the premise of ‘trial and error’. But … How to get to the top? What is needed to strengthen relationships with your collaborators? How do we forge respect towards our person? Are we good leaders?

how to be a leader

1. Leader by right

There are many managers, directors or presidents of companies whose title does not make them great leaders. However, something starts. This level as the most basic, where you begin to be an image to follow, from the moment you are appointed as a director, that is, by appointment.

Important characteristics to develop

  • Prepare. A good leader is always one step ahead in everything, make sure you know your company, this will help you to master the areas, to know your people and to facilitate your stay as a leader.
  • Know your tasks and your team. It is essential to build trust, if you know what you should do and under what premises, you will surely guide your team better, guiding them as it should be generating trust and good communication.
  • Connect your team with the purposes of your company. Your team should feel like part of the family, and this is important to develop if they know what role they have and how they help to improve their workplace. It relates to one another and there will be good results.

2. Leader by permission

You have stopped being the one with the title to become the leader of the team. This is where your people ‘allow’ you to be their leader. Remember that this is earned through trust, so if you reached this level, you already have it.

This level helps create close relationships with employees through the same development of their people, as well as nearby relations and a sense of belonging.

Important characteristics to develop

  • Appreciate your team. It may sound superfluous, but it is not, it values the people with whom you work.
  • Develop your work team. Make them grow along with your achievements, because they are a fundamental part of your successes.
  • Delegate. It is time to delegate important tasks to your team, this will generate more prepared work teams, more organization and spirit of development.

3. Leader by results

Your work and that of your team speak for you. At this level the effort is translated into results, the numbers are positive, the profits increase, the productivity is at maximum and the spirit of your people gives it away. It is the moment where the goals are reached and new, more ambitious and difficult ones are proposed, but with the certainty that you will manage to arrive with the help of your team.

Important characteristics to develop

  • It’s time to grow. You have to accept that your team is ready to take another step. Many of them will begin to climb in hierarchy and others will go to better positions, inside and outside of the company.
  • Keep developing your people. Make sure you generate the environment, always conducive, to work. Show them your support and recognize who deserves it.
  • Teach yourself to be a change agenda. It is time to learn when it is important to change course, what strategies would be better and what or who do not work. It is your task to do it.

4. Leader by reproduction

Your job is to create new leaders, and you have achieved it. At this level your people begin to reflect great leadership skills, indeed, some of them have exceeded you in different ways, this means that you have done your job well. Here stronger and stronger bonds are created, loyalty is one of them. Here your people stop being the team and they become your right hand.

Important characteristics to develop

  • Keep developing your people. Do you realize that? At all levels, this is the secret to achieving effective leadership.
  • Recognize your people as the most valuable element of your company.
  • Provide opportunities for growth, it is time to promote.
  • Attract other winners. Start recruiting people with great abilities to achieve new goals.

5. Leader out of respect

It is the level that any leader would like to reach. It is where your merits have exceeded expectations and conditions. Your reputation speaks more than your job and your people respect you for every achievement accomplished. You have become more than a leader, a mentor.

Characteristics of a great leader

  • Harvests loyalty.
  • You have become a leading educator.
  • You are a mentor with extensive experience.
  • You know that the greatest purpose is to develop your people.