Leadership is a mindset, not a title. If you want to be seen as a leader, you must show up and be willing to share your ideas, ask the hard questions, challenge the status quo and bring your gifts to the table.
Learn the fears and mindsets that hold you back from speaking up. One huge way you can position yourself as a leader among peers is by simply showing up to serve. They want to follow the person who they know cares. Bring value to your workplace. This is a difficult combination to achieve at times. Be authentic—if you put on a show with any of the above, you will be caught very soon.
Be humble. Real leaders, those who have real power, are often very humble people. Be aware of your strengths and of the value you bring. This allows you to show up with calm confidence. Offer guidance and insight to the teams on areas in which you have more experience or knowledge, and provide strong mentorship to newcomers to the team.
Leadership is about advancing the company and the team as a whole. Always consider the data as well as your gut. To be successful, you have to work endless hours in a day. Not everyone is a morning person, and not all results are given during the early hours.
Instead, adjust your thinking to making sure to optimize your extra time to perform work when you are most lucid and able to deliver work in a deep flow state. Late at night can be equally as impactful as early morning. The time of day doesn't matter nearly as much as the result. The key is to continue getting enough sleep and optimizing your biology to work when you naturally deliver the most significant impact.
When you're in your working zone, make sure that you've removed all distractions and can really put your effort in during those periods that you're most capable of giving your best results. Instead, delegate and trust the judgment of your inner circle when you are not away. If they make the wrong call, accept that and walk them through how to handle the situation next time. You can stick to a strict schedule and work hard for hours to no avail. It does not matter how big your effort is; if your goals are not clear or are poorly planned, you and the entire team that you are in charge of will not be successful.
I learned this lesson the hard way. Miner suggests taking an assessment to understand communication preferences or volunteering with a professional association to become more comfortable with public speaking or learn project management skills.
As someone who designed workplace training for decades, I can guarantee you that whatever the exercise, case study, or assignment given, it will end favorably for the learner, because it is designed to do so.
Instead, Miner suggests developing leadership skills in situ. To prepare for the conversation, ask the advice of a more senior manager, consult a coach, or watch a training video on YouTube or LinkedIn Learning. Without the real-world application, you could have learned the process in a training class eight months ago but not remember how to do it at the time of need.
Many organizations decide who will be a future leader at the company based on on-the-job performance or personality traits. For someone who was new, or underperforming, the box in which they could operate might be quite confined. For someone who was performing well, that box got bigger. As long as my own values were applied consistently, managing people differently became a strength.
You've probably noticed that these steps are not about getting better at your own job, attending any courses or enacting any HR processes. Leadership is not a tick-box exercise, and it can't be reduced to a process or number of steps to learn. If you aren't sure where you stand, make sure you ask the people you want to lead. Three-sixty feedback is important here.
We tend to ask our boss or people we see as leaders how to do it, but these are not the people whose opinions matter. The key to being a good leader is one of the hardest things to teach, but it can be the easiest to do.
You just have to bring your own style and personality in order to do it well. Forbes Human Resources Council is an invitation-only organization for HR executives across all industries. Do I qualify? This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here.
0コメント