Leadership is about people, it is not about a title or power or you personally being successful. When you are in a position where you are leader, your day is about your people either coaching them, providing them feedback or setting them up to be successful.
Here are some key attributes or skills that should focus on or develop to become a good, if not, great leader.
Care
When you are interacting with people, be curious about who they are, what do they enjoy, do they have family, what are their passion(s) or what gives them energy (whether at work or at home). When leaders start every call or interaction with "how are your sales or volume" they are sending a clear message on what they value and see as important. It does not take much to start any conversation with "how are you" and then actual listen and take in what the answer is. Show them that you actually value them as a person.
Be Humble
Having a quick search on the internet, Oxford languages state humble as "having or showing a modest or low estimate of one's importance." Basically being humble is to remember that it is not about you, it is not about your success, it is about the success of your people or team or organisation. Celebrate other people's success or your teams success. Without your people, you cannot deliver what you need to deliver or be successful.
Show vulnerability
Choosing to be seen as vulnerable is courageous, however society can judge it as weakness. It would be so much easier to raise your shield or put on your armour, hiding who you are or the mistakes that you have made. Let’s be clear—being vulnerable does not mean that you sit there crying or being angry, it is not over-sharing or shocking people. That is not vulnerability. Vulnerability is being okay with stepping out of your comfort zone or doing something that forces you to loosen control. Vulnerability is the feeling you get during times of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. This includes times when we are showing our feelings and aren’t sure what people will think. Plus, times when we really care about something and people will know that we are sad or disappointed when it doesn’t work out (Brené Brown).
As a leader, it is a balancing act between how you show vulnerability and avoiding those moments where you might have gone too far with ‘too much information’. It’s helpful to your team to role-model being okay with showing you’re anxious about a presentation or conversation, or that you feel uncomfortable with public speaking, or explaining you are having a bad day, or asking for support when you are doing something outside your comfort zone.
Invest
Everyone talks about the 80/20 rules, it means different things within different conversations however within Leadership it is about how much time you spend on your people. You should be able to spend 80% of your time at work with your people, supporting your people, coaching your people, setting them up to be successful. It is about investing in them, making sure that when you are with them that you are present, that your time is invested in them and their successes. It does not mean that you have to always stop what you are doing to focus on them (however sometimes this is ideal), it is about understanding when you need to ask if you can finish what you are doing or going back to them and saying give me 10 minutes or could we catch up in an hour or you give them your focus as you understand it will only take a few minutes to give them what they need.
Be authentic
Being authentic is becoming more and more important to people, especially within the workplace. Harold Hillman provides great insights into what it means to be authentic with his seven elements of authentic leadership:
Positivity: Do you make people feel good about themselves? Do you affirm people? Do you provide the fuel for others who want to make a difference?
Real: Are you consistent and genuine? Do you connect with people or do you use big words that even you do not fully understand? Do people need a decoder to understand you?
Edge: Do you stand out and bring it when it matters? Do people clearly understand what your line in the sand is?
Vulnerability: Are you okay with taking a risk? Are you okay with not being perfect or always being right? Do you stretch yourself as much as your team or peers? Are you open to letting others help you?
Energy: Do you invest in building something with people? Do you provide 0pportunities for others to help you be successful? Do you ask people to help you think?
Integrity: Do you bring your whole person to everything that you do? Are you able to walk the talk? Do people feel they deal with the same version of you every time they interact with you?
Connections: Do you bring people together? Are people inspired by your edge and/or your vulnerability?
Understand and show Empathy
Brené Brown explains that, ‘Empathy is connecting with people, so we know we’re not alone when we’re in struggle. Empathy is a way to connect to the emotion another person is experiencing; it doesn’t require that we have experienced the same situation they are going through’. She goes on to explain that the attributes of empathy are:
Be kind.
Be curious.
You do not need to fix it or make people feel better.
Connecting and listening is powerful.
Try to understand how the person is feeling (not how you might feel in the same situation).
Help people know that they are not alone in their feelings—even if you’ve never had that experience, you might know the feeling.
Let people know that you are grateful they shared with you.
Be mindful.
Create a high trust environment
‘The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them’ – Ernest Hemingway.
I love this quote as it turns societies expectations on its head, generally people talk about the fact that trust has to be earnt. I believe that people have to learn to be more trusting, this means that we have to be ok with vulnerability. When you are more trusting, you exposure yourself to the fact that someone might break your trust or not do what they said they were do. It sucks and can be annoying and potentially create more work for you as a leader however the opposite can be much more time consuming and annoying, imagine a team that has no trust.
It is importance to create a ‘circle of safety’. Simon Sinek refers to this in
his book, Leaders Eat Last. If people do not trust their fellow workers, or respect them, or aren’t happy to be vulnerable around them, it’s difficult to create that ‘circle of safety’. This means it gets tricky to create a culture or environment where people will put up their hand and ask for help or admit to making a mistake.
The risk of creating a high trust environment totally outweighs the alternative, when you have this culture everyone in your team understands they have the freedom to do their role without fear of being crucified if they make a mistake. They also know that they can come to you with anything as they trust you.
Leadership is a privilege, it is a position where everyday we have an opportunity to have an impact on someone's life, a person who could be someone's Mother, Father, Daughter or Son. What type of impact do you want to leave?
You can read more about People First Leadership through my book People: People First People Always - www.peoplefirstpeoplealways.com.
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