“One of the most prestigious accomplishments a leader can earn is the genuine respect of the people they serve”
Bobby Compton
Leadership Cred: Earning and maintaining respect is not for the faint of heart.
Not all bosses can lead. And leaders seldom boss. People willingly follow someone they respect. Earning and maintaining that respect is not for the faint of heart. It takes work.
If you are in a position that can influence others or have power to make decisions that impact others, you have the opportunity to develop as a leader. Everyday and every interaction is an opportunity to exercise your leadership skills. Developing good ones take time, commitment, training, mentoring and coaching.
You become a leader in progress because every time you grow and adapt you move to a new plateau. And each plateau brings a new set of challenges that require new skills. Recognizing and using these daily practices of leadership will help you earn your leadership cred:
1. It is not about you. It is about enabling and ensuring others are developing and growing to achieve the goals of the organization.
2. Be willing to adapt. Even if your intentions are good, you will need to change your style and develop varied skills to connect with others.
3. Guide the focus. If people spend more time thinking about you, your reaction, or are in fear of you, then all of you are losing the opportunity to be thinking about the vision, their work, their customer, and coming up with better ways to get work done.
4. Use feedback. If you are open to embracing feedback to using it as a tool for conversation and understanding, you will leap frog your growth as a leader and create an amazing team. On the other hand, if you don’t like feedback or get defensive when people share the impact of your style, then being in a manager role or leadership role might not be for you.
5. Build a Good Culture. If you are comfortable in who you are and where you are in terms of leadership skills and abilities and are unwilling to expand your skill set to connect to other styles, that’s one way. You will then have to accept consistent conflict and lack of performance around you. People want to be part of and contribute to a high performance culture and they expect you to create a framework where everyone thrives as well as the organization.
6. Manage Clarity Daily. “Assumption and expectation” are the cornerstones of ineffective communication. You must be prepared every morning to be in a state of clarifying these two misconceptions in all communication (especially with the people you have known the longest) if you want to create a clear, focused and aligned team that is strong and productive.
7. Know Your Truth and Align. You do need to have a clear personal vision of yourself as a leader and the goals you would like to accomplish with and through others. This helps people know who you are and to find the piece of you that resonates for them with their own goals and journey.
8. Stay Humble. You will make mistakes, you are not perfect. The faster you see the mistake, admit it, ask for help, adjust, get back up and move forward, the better change happens around you.
9. Go For It. Leadership is by far the most satisfying and rewarding opportunity in the world. When your skills are strong, your goals are clear, your team is strong and operating well, and everyone is focused on the “how”….amazing things happen.
10. Be It. As you develop your leadership skills they will become a fundamental part of you that is practiced in all venues of your life. When you embrace this notion, you will see amazing shifts in all aspects of your life.
Continue to Grow, Learn and Practice
