A friend suggested I blog about leadership approach, so here we are.
I just started my leadership journey last year, I am learning, there is so much to understand and at which to get better. Here are some things that immediately come to my mind when tackling a leadership role.
These tips may be good for leadership roles of all types, but I am focusing on leading a group of people who do creative, knowledge work. This includes fields like software development, plumbing, engineering, accounting, and marketing.
We Need To Care About the Team Over Ourselves
It seems very common for people in leadership positions to view it as a privileged position. I wish I could say this was pure silliness, but I understand the sentiment. You “climbed” the ladder of leadership and earned the position. It makes you feel like you earned a little privilege. Well down that path lies folly. That path breeds contempt and dysfunction on your team.
Instead, we shine as a leader when we embrace the solitary toil of supporting others. Our team’s success becomes our success. It does not sound satisfying, but I learned there is much joy in seeing someone do better, overcome an obstacle, accomplish something great because of your direct influence.
Let’s leave our egos at the door.
It is All About Intent
Along with the feeling of privilege comes the temptation of giving orders. We feel we are now a “master of our domain” and earned the right to boss others around. That is all well and good except this does not work. People who do creative work are competent and need to be freed and equipped, not commanded.
What I find works is to in all thing speak my intent. It is one of the greatest tools to getting people all collaborating effectively to get stuff done.
Our Energy Matters
This is not some New Age philosophy, but we as humans put out an atmosphere around us based on our mood. We also absorb other people’s moods. This means when we feel dejected our team is getting a taste of dejectedness. When we feel confident, our team gets a taste of confidence.
Let’s ensure we are aware of our mood and do our best to keep it positive. We want to show confidence and stability to our team. This does not mean we alway must be chipper our high energy. It does mean we need to keep our temperament and what we say in check.
We are always “on” as leaders. It is alright to let our team know when things are not optimal or if we are feeling sad about something, but it must be done in a way that lets the team know it will be alright in the end. We must have an energy that let’s the team know that we all can overcome our current obstacles.
Beyond just positivity it is also healthy for us to project stability. If we are running around from task to task like a headless chicken, the team will feel adrift and lost. We should ensure that we are setup to project stability and focus in our team space. We shall not let the unending pile of tasks at our doorstep phase us. To tackle this I like to prioritize and execute one task at a time. When new tasks arrive I put them in a personal backlog and groom their priority later. This allows me to focus and keep my temperament more even.
Turn Everyone Into Leaders
If we are good enough we can run a team well, giving orders form on high and ensuring everything is strategized properly. This will work fro awhile, until we leave or go on vacation. Then everything falls apart. Not only this but we are very likely to burnout from all the attention we must give to these things.
In a team of creative workers we can instead turn each member into leaders. A sustainable, high-performing team does not have room for people who only follow. Most creative workers already have initiative and the desire to do good work. Alas, bad bosses, eduction systems, and corporations have beaten this desire out of many. We need to free our team members and give it back to them.
We can free them by getting them to critically think about the problems they regularly solve and to feel safe to solve them in different ways. We need to transform our team from asking us permission to informing us of their intent. We need to transform us answering their questions to asking them how they would solve the problem or how they would answer the question. We need to let them make suboptimal solutions. And once we do all this we need to equip them with the tools and training to make optimal solutions.
This is hard and finding balance for each team member is ever a struggle, but the payout is huge. We will have a high performing team that can run without our constant presence and will continue to perform well after we move on.
We Must Be Diligent
We as leaders are loaded guns. We have the ability to do great good in the team space or great harm. I hope these ideas help you do great good in yours.
This post was originally posted at The Simple Efficiencer blog.