Think about the greatest colleague you ever worked with. What made him or her great from your perspective? What did he or she do? How did he or she act that made that person a great colleague? What comes to mind? For this blog post about lessons in leadership, assume every great leader has integrity at their core.
If you’re like most, you thought of a variety of attributes that span both building relationships and getting results. Every great leader must balance the two because all great leaders need to get things done through their team of people.
Intuitively, you and I can define a great leader by identifying traits like we have from the question above. So, we can define it, but are we living those attributes out daily? Do we act on what we know to be true or is it just head knowledge?
I would like to highlight three lessons in leadership based on the top attributes of a leader as identified by RightPath Resources research. These lessons are appropriate at any level in your organization.
Lessons in Leadership
Lesson 1: Be a good listener
We learn over and over that a great leader is a good listener. But do we, as leaders, listen as much as we could? To listen well is to listen with intent to understand what the person is communicating, whether with words, with their silence, tone of voice, body language, emotions, or energy.
The idea is to listen without judgement. To judge while you listen puts the focus on yourself, not the other person. When you listen with intent you will also hear the underlying motivations and concerns.
When you truly listen, the person you’re engaged with will know it.
For more insight into leading through listening go here.
Lesson 2: Show concern for others
When you show concern for others, it shows your ability to develop strong relationships, and that builds trust. To show concern:
- Openly recognize the contribution of each person.
- Be versatile in how you respond to others because each person is unique.
- Be aware of the impact your words and actions have on others and adjust your responses appropriately.
- Express empathy during challenging circumstances.
- Treat people with respect and fairness.
- Find ways to show kindness in unexpected ways.
And finally, when someone confides in you, hold the conversation as private and confidential.
Lesson 3: Motivate yourself and colleagues
It takes motivation to achieve results. Don’t underestimate the fact that often, it just takes action to motivate yourself.
As a leader it’s important to understand what motivates you and your team. There isn’t one, magic solution to motivating everyone but there are some guidelines we can look at. For example, everyone has a need to be connected and everyone has a need to be stimulated with their work.
We need to feel connected to other people. By creating a strong team identity, and involving everyone, you are creating a sense of belonging.
Our brains need to be stimulated for us to see value in our work. To provide a stimulating environment, look at an individual’s development needs and set appropriate objectives and goals.
Design jobs that enable people to feel a sense of accomplishment. Allow them to use their abilities, and to exercise their own decision-making powers. To give your people some say in how they do the work creates a sense of ownership.
Motivation also comes from knowing why you are working on the task. Sometimes we know exactly what to do and even how to do it, yet we don’t fully understand why it’s necessary or how it fits into the big picture —and that impacts motivation. This may be the missing piece when motivating others into action.
Help your team to understand why they need to accomplish a task or do a job. This flows into the larger purpose of the team and the organization. When I led a large group of women and trained them to lead others, I spent more time helping them understand why something needed to be done than I did on training them what needed to be done or how. Motivation matters.
Additionally, be optimistic and give feedback regularly. Recognizing progress in the job is a motivator; you can help people see the progress by the feedback you give.
Take it forward
Every leader, no matter where they reside in the organization can listen more intently, show concern for team members, and motivate at a higher level. The things I talked about in this post may not be new to you. As I said, you may instinctively know what to do but you may not be living it out daily. What area will you focus on to take your leadership to the next level?
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