There are thousands of books written about leadership. We’ve distilled some lessons from some of them into the acronym JUST FOR ME - nine things within your control to help you become a more effective leader.

1. Just do it.

So often we get in our own way of implementing our ideas. Stop limiting the business’s potential and prioritise your time to ensure the important things get done.

2. United vision and values.

Your vision is where you want the business to be in the future; your values are the compass that drive your behaviour to get there. Clarify and articulate these ASAP.

3. Safety.

It’s a leader’s job to ensure physical and emotional safety for their team at work. This goes beyond legal obligations; the safer employees feel at work, the more productive, innovative and loyal they’ll be.

4. Teamwork and Trust.

Form a team of people who are smarter than you in different ways, using your collective expertise to achieve results impossible to achieve alone. Build a culture of trust so your team know they can rely on you and that the feeling is mutual.

5. Focus.

Bring focus to each team member’s individual contribution towards achieving the business goals and vision. Provide clear key performance indicators to ensure everyone knows what to focus on.

6. Opportunity.

Look for the opportunity in every mistake, challenge and difficult situation. These are key sources of learning.

7. Resilience and Resourcefulness.

Resilience helps you recover quickly from difficult situations; resourcefulness helps you find quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties. Build resilience and resourcefulness in your team and yourself.

8. Mindset.

This is the attitude you bring to your role as leader. Do you have an abundance mindset or scarcity mindset? Do you take ownership, accountability and responsibility for your actions? Your mindset has a huge impact on how you and your team feel about coming to work each day.

9. Empathy and Energy.

Empathy is the ability to see things from another’s perspective. For example, instead of disciplining a team member for struggling, first seek to understand why they’re struggling, then offer support and training. Increased empathy increases energy across the team and the business and improves results.

Take these nine factors and make a plan for how you can develop your leadership skills. Which one will you focus on first? If you need help implementing strategies to become a better leader, get in touch.

“Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying fundamentals.” - Jim Rohn