Trading can feel like an isolated endeavour in your trading room

This post is written by Hao Sun of Trade With Precision. Hao Sun is a trading mentor and active contributor to the Precision Perspectives video newsletter and group mentoring sessions. Hao holds a Bachelor’s degree in economics and a Masters degree in financial engineering. In addition, Hao also holds a level three Bloomberg product certificate in foreign exchange, fixed income and equities.While this may sound like the ideal set up for introverted people, it is not a good idea to withdraw from society altogether. We still need to relate to and communicate with others to get by. Besides, teaching and leading someone can be one of life’s most fulfilling and enjoyable experiences. Although your contact with other traders is limited, there are definitely opportunities to be a leader out there. How then can you develop your leadership skills in trading?

Have a dream and work towards it

Firstly, leaders need to have dreams that they are working towards. You can’t really lead if you are not going anywhere! Sometimes your dreams are personal, but sometimes they are larger than even you can imagine. Having a dream gives you direction and when you openly declare what your dream is, you are not only encouraging others to aim high but also allowing life to open doors for you. Knowing what you are working towards helps inform your everyday choices and it becomes easier to say no to things that do not serve your purpose. We only have a finite amount of time and resources so being able to pick out the absolute essentials is paramount to boost productivity. Don’t say yes to everything, being a leader means saying no where it counts.

Be inspirational while you learn your part

In trading, the end goal is to be a profitable and sustainable trader. Trading is a skill that takes time to master and sometimes you can hit a plateau where you don’t seem to be making any progress at all in spite of your efforts. It is easy to fall into a rut at this point and feel dejected that you aren’t getting anywhere but this is exactly where leaders have the opportunity to set themselves apart from the rest. Leaders are able to stay motivated even though progress seems to be stalling, and through their courage and perseverance, they inspire others. During this time, traders with leadership qualities are not only coming to grips with weaknesses in their own trading but also looking for ways to improve. They simply refuse to give up!

Encourage but also challenge

A leader doesn’t stop at just encouraging other traders. They also challenge them to face obstacles head on in order to help the junior trader develop resilience and bring out the best in them. This is more active and “hands on” than simply being inspirational. In order to be effective at encouraging and challenging, traders with more experience should consider organizing trading clinics or even hosting monthly catch ups to find out how everyone is going. Getting to know the people you mentor helps you gain perspective, both for their trading and your own. Plus it is extremely rewarding to develop friendships and know that you are doing your bit to share your trading knowledge and experience within a trading community where people know and trust each other.

Be consistent but also be adaptable

Trading the financial markets can also be emotionally challenging because you need two diametrically opposed skills. On one hand, you need to be consistent in your application of your trading strategy to see results; on the other hand, you need to be open-minded and accepting of change and be ready to adapt your approach depending on what you see in the market. It can feel quite confusing sometimes but a good leader knows when to switch it up and when to stay the course. Experience helps and it is a matter of recognizing what job you have on hand then picking the right tools (or in our case, trading strategies) to get the job done. Don’t worry if you find this difficult at the moment, your judgment will develop as you trade and interact with other traders!

Be humble

Lastly, recognizing that although you may be a leader to someone, you also need to seek out someone more experienced than you to help you in your own development. Allow yourself to be humble to receive instruction or criticism. Sometimes others tell us exactly the things we do not want to hear but it is for our own good. Uncomfortable though that criticism may be, it actually helps us recognise our shortcomings and alerts us to areas where we can tweak for improvement. Be quick to listen and slow to speak. Take criticism gracefully and apply it to your trading where necessary. It will do you more harm than good and earn you respect for when the roles are reversed.Safe trading everyone!