As we gear up for a new year, now is the time to strengthen your leadership skills for 2019 and ensure that you are effectively leading your organization toward achieving its goals. Here are three things you can do now to prepare for the future.

1. Hire an Executive Coach

An executive coach’s goal is to help you become the best version of yourself. Executive coaches become trusted thought partners and are just as invested in you reaching your goals as you are.

Many executive coaches serve as accountability partners for their clients by encouraging them to work toward their professional goals and holding them accountable for any actions that don’t help them move toward those goals. Additionally, an executive coach can help you unlock hidden talents and realize your potential, ensuring that you are aware of your capabilities as a leader and are consciously working toward developing those talents.

An executive coach serves as a non-biased resource to develop new ways to implement the information you’ve learned. Executive coaches can also help you build more productive relationships with your colleagues and staff and learn how to improve your interaction with people from different cultures and backgrounds.  In addition, an executive coach can also help you identify talent within and outside of your organization. As companies continue to make strides toward added diversity within their organizations, it is important that leaders are able to adapt to those changes.

One way to do adapt to those changes in a positive way is by enhancing your communication skills. Why? Because learning to listen to your colleagues and staff is just as important as the instructions you give them. Executive coaches can also help you strengthen your active listening skills and teach you ways to respond to challenging situations for the best possible outcome.

Anything you share with your coach is kept confidential; usually, executive coaching is conducted face to face, on the phone or via Skype and other video communication applications.

2. Take professional development classes

Professional development is a must for all business leaders. Business leaders who consistently seek ways to improve themselves can positively affect the internal climate of an organization.

Professional development classes can benefit you by helping you learn new methods of leadership and refine some of the traits you already have. Additionally, professional development can also serve as a way for you to teach others within your organization and field.

When it comes to professional development, you don’t always have to be the one taking the class. You can also be the person leading a class on leadership and other industry related trends that you’ve mastered as a professional.

3. Engage via social media

As we advance further into the digital age, more business leaders are stepping out from behind the scenes and making their presence known on social media. Taking some time to engage with your organization’s digital audience via social media helps establish you as an expert; it also adds a personal component to your organization’s online interactions.

Engaging with your organization’s customers and potential customers is a great way to add a human element to your company’s brand identity.  It helps you to appear personable and gives customers the idea that they know you and what you value.

Engaging with customers or clients can be as simple as commenting on trending topics on social media. Though these topics may not necessarily relate to your company’s brand, they may be important to your organization’s online audience. Personally delivering news to your organization’s online followers about new products, services, and or initiatives is another way for the public to put a face with the brand they love. Also, if you enjoy writing, publishing a blog on industry related topics and sharing those blog posts on social media is another way to connect with customers.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, being a leader requires continuous focus and intentionality, so be sure that you use all the tools at your disposal to become the best leader for your organization. Your reputation as a professional relies on your ability to relate to those around you and gain respect from your supervisors, peers, and direct reports.

Leadership consists of many different traits, but one of the most important characteristics is the ability to be led.  Gathering insight from your customers by engaging on social media, learning through professional development, and hiring an executive coach are all ways to be influenced and aid you in your efforts to become more effective.

As Q4 comes to a close, assess where you were last year at this time and ensure that you are continuing to work toward your year end-goals. Ask yourself questions such as:  Have I taken the necessary steps to be the leader I aimed to be this year?  Am I on target to meet my year end professional and organizational goals? What part of this year was challenging for me?  What changes am I planning to make in order for it to be less challenging in the future? Then,  take that information from your assessment and use it as a plan to close out Q4 on a positive note and bring in a strong 2019.