The Four T’s of Great Leadership

The single most important ingredient for transformational high-performance improvement is leadership. Anyone in a management role is considered a leader, but not everyone in those positions exhibits true leadership. The best leaders take their expert management skills and combine them with people skills to become well rounded and highly successful. The difference between being a good leader and a great one is in the relationships you build with your team. These are the four key components of great leadership.

Truth: Lack of truth expressed in any organization can take many forms. It could be departments not sharing information because it might put them in a bad situation with peers or it could be information not reaching a manager because no one wants to pass-on any bad news. Leaders need to know the truth to make intelligent business decisions and the employees at all levels should know the truth to do their jobs effectively.

Trust: Without trust, a leader will not succeed instigating a productive team culture. Moreover, the most important attribute building trust is transparency. Leaders build up their team members’ trust by communicating transparently and truthfully – in other words, by being trustworthy. In addition to the importance of team members trusting their boss, it is essential that supervisors also trust their direct reports and facilitate their success by creating the conditions for it.

Transparency: Many employees believe their organizations arre held back by a lack of transparency. When an individual or an organization is transparent, there are no hidden agendas and no information is being kept from people who need to know it. Transparency also promotes recognition of common goals. This is important because you are not stating one thing while covertly trying to achieve something else. Trust and transparency go hand-in-hand because transparency builds trust.

Teamwork: Teamwork is critical to success in any effort. Excellent leadership requires inspiring the people around them by empowering them, by enabling them to contribute their expertise as a collective and cohesive team, and ultimately trusting them.  Teamwork and leadership in tandem are important because they provide clarity for your team and have a direct impact on the vision of the company and its results.

Being a great leader isn’t easy and every leader—no matter how good or experienced—can always get better. But great leaders can have a tremendous impact on the people around them and on an organization’s ability to make a positive difference.

No matter what your title is, you can become a great leader. Practice these skills, and you'll be on the path to great leadership.