The 5 Step Pathway to Extraordinary Leadership
Extraordinary leaders are invaluable.
They know their own strengths and limitations.
They connect with their people and know how to get them working well together.
They are strategic and have a strong leadership presence among their peers.
They are savvy at working through difficult people issues.
They are excellent communicators who inspire their teams with a clear purpose.
Extraordinary leadership doesn’t happen overnight. Often, the skills that got a leader to their current role, are not the skills needed to get them to where they need to go next. It takes focused effort, coaching, accountability, and a lot of work on the “right things.”
Those “right things” can be categorized into 5 key elements that I use with clients to help them develop into extraordinary leaders.
1. CLARITY
This is what sets up a leader for success. Clarity involves understanding strengths and weaknesses. It helps crystalize a personal leadership vision and leads to defining goals and actions to achieve that vision.
Not having clarity in leadership development is like embarking on a road trip without knowing your destination. You could choose to begin driving, but until you have determined your destination, you are going to be wasting your time wandering around aimlessly.
A great example is my client, Tracy, who was struggling with her leadership in a new director role. She knew she wasn’t performing at her optimal level, but she didn’t know where to start. We began by getting clarity on her -- her personality, what motivates her, understanding when she was at her best and when she was not – and that was a game-changer for her! That clarity helped her to create a leadership vision and development goals that were meaningful. Her leadership quickly elevated and the results positively impacted her team and the organization.
2. BUILDING TEAM ENGAGEMENT
Understanding how to engage and empower people as individuals and as a team is vital to a culture of high performers.
Extraordinary leaders create an environment where employees do their work energetically and take the extra effort to go above and beyond their normal jobs without being asked.
Research shows engaged employees are more productive, more profitable, more innovative, and more customer-focused. And a really big benefit to engagement is – they love what they do and who they do it for, so they typically stay.
A great example of this is my client, Mike. As a new leader, he inherited a team that was imbalanced in its workload, not working together and experiencing burnout. We worked out a plan for him to really listen to his team first. He then reorganized the group and built a collaborative culture where team members were empowered to support each other and leverage their strengths. As a result, the team’s productivity significantly increased, and the employees were not only happy but engaged.
Leadership skills to build for fostering engagement include:
Know employees well and connect with them often.
Encourage creativity and learning.
Inspire ownership.
Delegate and empower.
Facilitate and model collaboration.
Think strategically about how to structure and organize the people and the work for efficiency and for growth.
3. CONFLICT & COACHING
Unresolved conflict can delay projects and diminish morale. Managing conflict well and coaching employees builds trust and better solutions.
Conflict can be one of the hardest “people issues” to manage and quite frankly, is often ignored. Most seasoned leaders can recount a story of how unresolved conflict delayed a project caused an unnecessary problem or even diminished morale in a team.
I’ve seen this play out with my client, Lauren, who had an employee who was causing conflict throughout the organization. People would complain to Lauren about how this employee treated others and always demanded his ideas and priorities be put above everyone else’s. By working with her on how to have a difficult conversation with her employee, she was able to provide constructive, direct feedback as well as direct expectations of behavior. She was also able to coach the employee on how to share his ideas in a more productive way which ultimately benefited the team. The result was not only a change in the employee’s behavior but a boost in team morale.
A key ingredient to Lauren’s success in handling the conflict with her employee was coaching. As problem solvers, technical leaders often want to prescribe a solution rather than coach people to solve problems themselves. Coaching is an important skill to build and requires thoughtful action and self-control.
Keys to managing conflict and coaching employees include:
Proactively give and receive feedback.
Build trust.
Learn to deliver difficult messages.
Actively listen, probe, and ask the right questions.
4. LEADERSHIP PRESENCE: HOW YOU SHOW UP
Leaders set the tone for their teams. Skills like self-management, listening, and empathy are important in technical leadership because they build trust and inspire action.
Leadership Presence is tightly coupled with emotional intelligence (EQ) which is critical to important leadership traits like decision making, listening, reading people, influencing, and getting along with others.
Having a strong EQ as a leader is like an athlete who not only knows how to play their sport well but also has a “feel” for the game.
A good example of how Leadership Presence and EQ can be impacted is my client, Amir. Amir was known to be “crazy smart” in his field, but he had a knack for rubbing people the wrong way with his direct approach to communication and his lack of awareness of how what he said impacted his people. After coaching him to focus on building his empathy and listening skills, he was able to increase the engagement of his team and improve his cross-functional collaboration.
Keys to strengthening Leadership Presence include:
Thinking strategically.
Managing emotions well; casting a “positive shadow”.
Stress management and resilience.
Increasing empathy and listening skills.
Strategic time management and prioritization.
5. INSPIRING THROUGH COMMUNICATION: STORY TELLING
Leaders must communicate well at all levels. People are inspired through big picture storytelling and understanding how what they do fits into a bigger purpose.
Storytelling in business is all about getting your ideas across well and having influence. If you’ve ever had trouble expressing your ideas in a way that helps company leaders see the value, then improving your storytelling skills will help.
Many leaders have a strong knowledge base and are great problem solvers, but struggle to communicate their ideas and knowledge in a way that inspires others, brings clarity, and leads to change.
It’s like having acquired a locked treasure chest of valuables with no key to open it and take advantage of its contents. Ideas stay “locked up” with leaders who, with storytelling skills, could be making a much bigger impact.
This is reminiscent of my client, Rebecca, who struggled early on in her career to articulate her ideas in a way that would inspire others to action. She had a great depth of knowledge, but it wasn’t until we worked to combine her knowledge with storytelling that she began to inspire action in others. The transformation was remarkable and improved the engagement of both her people and their customers.
Storytelling involves honing the following skills:
Understanding the audience.
Thinking through content so that it is presented in the most impactful way.
Communicating information that can be easily digested, vetted, or acted upon.
Inspiring action in others by sharing messages that resonate and stick.
These 5 key elements are all part of the Leadership Infusion Program that includes 1-on-1 coaching combined with learning, application, and accountability. This program helps accelerate a leader's growth and influence so they can lead an engaged team that gets results.
Reach out to me on LinkedIn or here if you'd like to schedule a leadership exploration call.