For those of you who are leaders in their field, manage or supervise employees, could you describe your leadership style in one sentence? I coach many leaders and have identified and implemented with clients successful strategies that help them progress in their careers.
To refine yourself as a leader, you first need to raise your self-awareness, know your achievements and communicate your value. Secondly, as part of your refinement, leaders must bring out and reaffirm positive behaviours in the work place. Here is a quick list of positive strategies that you can implement immediately at work (and what to avoid):
- Inspire others, bring energy to the room, to a meeting and display enthusiasm. (Avoid being grumpy)
- Communicate a clear vision and focus on achieving excellence at work. (Be mindful of your body language)
- Be credible, reliable and demonstrate great judgement. (Do not make bad decisions)
- Collaborate and do not view your work as a competition. (You are not here for personal gain or one-upmanship)
- Behave in ways that align to your core values and the culture of the organisation. (Remember to walk the talk)
- Undertake professional and personal self-development, learn from mistakes and allows others to do the same. (Never ignore or act upon constructive feedback)
- Master skills such as learning and using people’s names, looking people in the eye, giving praise, smiling and applying light humour. (This is about not dominating a conversation)
- Ask for ideas, suggest improvements, value contributions from others, start to think about better ways to do things, embrace and support change. (If you create a climate of stagnation, it can decrease morale and increase staff turnover)
- Focus on the long-term success for your employees by helping or mentoring people and build capability. (Not offering training to employees and not giving positive performance feedback for a job well done)
Do you need to take your leadership to the next level? Are you demonstrating mature leadership that is also positive? Let me introduce the concept of intelligent leadership.
The Intelligent Leadership Framework places emphasis on becoming more self-aware and it uncovers critical strengths and development needs that can lead to increased fulfilment, greater balance, commitment and alignment. It uncovers positive leader behaviours and this type of coaching can improve leadership visibility and provide a person with high confidence and motivation. If you want to start 2018 with a shift in focus and mindset, then become an Intelligent Leader through coaching.