Last week I kicked around some ideas about what it takes to be a leader now it’s time to get a little more detailed. So here’s Part 2 of our Leadership Arsenal articles.

Choose the right person/people for the job

Everyone has natural abilities and being able to see those abilities and utilize them to the best potential is essential. Sometimes it’s just being able to see that potential in the person that is necessary. Realizing that they need a little support and encouragement to become better in certain areas where they are lacking. Alternately, realizing that no matter how hard a person tries, the task is beyond their abilities. It shows poor leadership skills to have unrealistic expectations of a person’s abilities. Expecting too much or too little of them hampers the progress of that task at hand.

Choose the right people to work together

Obviously a leader is not there to cater to egos but putting people together when there is an obvious major personality conflict serves no purpose. I’m not talking about “I don’t like him/her” stuff. I’m talking about conflicts that reduce productivity because they are a distraction or are counter productive. You wouldn’t put the wife of a man who’s left her for someone else with the other woman but there are less obvious conflicts.

For example some people do their best work in chaos. The bigger the mess, the noisier the locale, the more activity, the better. They thrive on constant activity and mental stimulation. Now imagine them paired with a person that is super organized. Someone that plans out every step, who functions best in a quiet atmosphere, who develops a detailed timeline and follows it. Normally, pairing these types of people together serves only to frustrate each of them and thus reduces their productivity so why start a project off with problems, there are sure to be enough task related issues to resolve. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes team members need to be shaken up. Need to see that their “way” is not “THE way”.

Chaotic, uncontrolled creativity can always be better directed with a little control and planning. Good ideas get lost in chaos. Over planning something, to the smallest detail, can take away the opportunity for spontaneous creativity.