Being a market leader is the outcome of a harmonious and productive effort of a team; a team, that delivers superior, innovative and timely products and services. The harmony and quality of the team revolves around the team leader. The impact of bad leadership is alarming, even though the system catches up with a bad leader, it can turn out to be an expensive experience for the company.

A team leader is the driving force who pushes the members forward to the company objectives. He is to understand the strengths and weaknesses of its members and provide the encouragement to the team. Praise and encouragement on good work has immense power to bring out the best in a person. However a poor leader only sees the weaknesses and uses it as a way for blaming the members which results in a low morale within the team. A team with a low morale loses interest in their tasks, leading to delay in the production of outputs. Delay in the results leads to the payment of penalty, thereby eating up a huge portion of the company’s revenue.

Similarly a highly de-motivated team on losing the passion to work fails to come up with innovative ideas and has a lower level of commitment to the task allotted. This has a negative impact on the productivity of the products and services. Inability to come up with imaginative and innovative ideas can lead to the loss of business, especially in knowledge industry as the customers prefer those companies which can aid to its profitability through significant brainstorms.

The team leader assists the team members to identify their individual goals on the basis of their strengths and weaknesses. An individual who lacks the leadership skills fails to assess the strengths and weaknesses of his team and thus would not be able to guide his team in attaining the goals. Absence of an effective counsel leads to ineffective time management. The long hours put in leads to a disruptive work-life balance bringing about a high level of physical and mental stress. High level of stress ends up in physical and psychological diseases, thereby making one abstain from office for days. Failure to provide the output on the pre determined date leads to the payment of huge penalties to the customers and loss of business. Thus a quick recovery from this cycle is inevitable for the survival of the business entity.

A poor manager has little control over time management. His ineffective leadership fails to draw commitment to work resulting to long hours in the office. He also fails to understand the individual capabilities of his members, pushing unmanageable work load on the team members. Lack of an effective communication amongst the manager and the team members, the heavy work load, and the immense dissatisfaction forces the individuals to move to another project within the same company or to resign from the company. Thus poor leadership qualities are one of the major causes for labour attrition.

It is therefore rightly said that “the best leaders have employees who follow them anywhere….they understand results are achieved not because they have the perfect strategy or know how to give orders, but because the people who work for them feel empowered to do their very best”.