Leading Better
Leadership development is a $366 billion-dollar industry. If you have been in a leadership role for a while, you likely have received in-house training, attended conferences, workshops, and seminars. By now you have been exposed to more tips and tricks than your mind can remember. If your hope to become more effective at your job isn’t working as you planned, you are not alone. The sheer volume of information coming at you can be overwhelming. After all, when training is too complicated to remember, what chance do most of us have to apply it when it is needed most?
Perhaps we have made leading too complex. We need a natural way to enhance our innate abilities and grow our skills. I think a simpler approach is possible and might deliver the results you want to lead better with less toil. To become a better leader we need to make a few pivots in our current approach. Here are a few to get you started.
Stop copying
I remember as a 5th grader in elementary school how we were expected to solve math problems ourselves and provide evidence of how we did it. We had to show our work. Copying from our neighbor was not allowed. If we did and got caught, not only would we fail the assignment, but we robbed ourselves of proving what we could accomplish when we set our mind to it. My teacher had equipped me with the tools I needed for a person of my age and skill to succeed, but it was up to me to use what I had learned and apply it to the problem before me.
Traditional leadership development seems to promote the expert way of doing things in a world far different than our workplace.
You might agree with me that most leadership development programs can help establish a foundation. Aspiring leaders benefit from recognizing various leadership styles, communication, emotional intelligence, and more. However, this should only be the beginning.
In the end, you probably have come to the realization that leadership training can only take one so far. We don’t succeed by copying what someone else does. Do it too long and we never develop our own voice. We need to resist the temptation to pick the low-hanging fruit when instead we should be on purpose about picking the right fruit, in the correct season.
Too much traditional leadership development can blur our vision
While much leadership content is similar, what concerns me most about traditional leadership development is the emphasis placed on the ‘expert’, leader. Paid programs invite us to learn from consultants, former CEOs, entrepreneurs, and even celebrities the ways they were successful when they were working in their respective organizations.
While recognizable names such as Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, or Jack Welch command tremendous credibility in their respective fields, how does learning their approach help you in your current situation?
Traditional leadership development can blur our sight so we are less able to develop ourselves and solve problems in ways that make sense in our environments and seen as authentic to our followers.
Many programs can be costly; ranging from $1500 to $5000 per day according to HBR. In their recent article, authors Mihnea Moldoveanu and Das Narayandas report, “. . .more than 50% of senior leaders believe that their talent development efforts don’t adequately build critical skills and organizational capabilities.”
Programs like these require specialized tools that cost money, take time, and get replaced after a few years. Receiving training is a good thing and many receive tremendous benefit from it. However, with that understanding, what does taking academic programs or attending conferences led by the most famous entrepreneurs, C-Suite darlings, politicians, or philanthropists have to do with how we lead others every day? In my experience, not too much.
Could it be that the type of leadership we are experiencing today throughout society is the best money can buy and experts can deliver? Do these elevated people work where you do, in the environment you work in, or with your teams? We know that is not the case most of the time. Many of the individuals we admire so much couldn’t do your job for a day. If that’s true, perhaps the answer to becoming an exemplary leader is less about what the expert says and more about what you think and put into practice.
Becoming the leader others want to follow is a problem you are well-equipped to solve; you just may have yet to realize you already possess the tools you need to be successful.
Perhaps leaning too much on the work of others is part of our leadership deficit we experience at work and in our communities. The majority take the easier path and choose to copy people they think are smarter than they are. Unfortunately, to our dismay, we’ve found they are not as smart as we thought. The ones being copied have gotten it wrong. Now we are faced with bigger challenges and less practice in leading others well. The good news is we can make a change.
Use the tools you have more effectively
When you take a moment to put away the formulas, lists, methodologies and get down to the core of what is truly needed to lead better — you can. Your tools consist of your head, heart, and hands. That’s it. It can be that simple and why I believe everyone can lead better.
Using what we were born with differently might be what you need to become more effective. Leadership cannot be a checklist. And the transformation in becoming better at anything for most of us didn't happen in a day. Sure, we may make a decision today to lead better because our team needs a better leader, but the desired result takes longer.
When you recognize that the change you seek to make and take responsibility for leading yourself, the journey begins. When my eyes opened to doing things differently than what I was seeing, I began trusting myself more. I started to lean into my strengths and defined a framework to help me employee servant leadership at home and work. I used the tools I had to help me lead better over time. I also committed myself to practice shepherding my teams to become the leader my teams needed.
It can happen to you too. What is your heart telling you?
Heart
Leadership worth following begins, first in the heart of the leader. A desire for the one in charge to become the leader their people deserve. When our values move from self-focused to others-focused, the seed of good leadership has germinated. This only can happen in the human heart at the right time.
What has been born in our hearts can become our new identity. When we see ourselves differently our behaviors will follow.
Identity questions
Who you are?
Who you are becoming?
What is most important to you?
Head
The transformation that begins in the heart engages our head. Now we look for action and soon new behaviors will come through our hands and voice. Our actions will confirm the transformation is real; to ourselves and our followers.
When our heart changes, whatever is true, right, and real about us wants to come out. Our head will help us to do that.
Our minds can build a plan for us to follow. Our will can help us stick to it.
Mindset questions
What are your guiding principles?
What information would cause you to change your mind?
How do you engage others to achieve desirable outcomes?
Hands
Putting our heart and mind into action can change others — through physical effort. Our hands represent what people see us do. With commitment, the work you choose to do will become consistent with what is in your heart and mind.
Your hands can become the instruments of compassion. Ushering in the change needed to create healthy environments, safe places, driven by love and empathy. Being a shepherd leader means we are hands-on with our people.
Tools to extend your reach
Staff
We have all seen an image of a shepherds’ crook. The staff represents knowing the path: we use it along the path we have plotted out. It helps us to navigate changes in the terrain along the way. The staff symbolizes the extension of your reach as you cannot only influence your team but others around them.
Rod
The rod helps keep us on track so we don’t lose our way. In the team environment, it symbolizes how we align, protect, and keep the team on track to complete the mission. It may also be what we use to help move through fear.
“Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do.”
Voice
Your voice takes time to develop but is perhaps the most powerful of all our tools and critical to influencing others. When done correctly, over time, your people will recognize your voice. They may leverage your voice in developing their own. They hear you. They really hear you. Because you have spent a lot of time with your people.
So what happens when you call your followers? Not only do they recognize your voice, but they respond and come ready to contribute. A shepherd leader says it this way, “The work matters. The people doing the work matter more.”
Last thoughts
People deserve better leaders. Becoming a leader others want to follow is not a checklist. Instead, it is more like a journey. A journey with a direction, but not a fixed destination. Leading others is much more like art than a set of rules to be followed. Trust in yourself more and see who comes with you.