No matter what industry, company or department you work in…there are a few key factors of leadership that will make or break a project. With corporate investment dollars being managed much more conservatively, you can’t afford to have an initiative fall behind or even fail to deliver. The right leadership can make the difference between a motivated team that executes and feels great about their hard work and a team that can’t wait for a project to be over.
There are many formal ways to assess your leadership skills and identify your strengths and weaknesses. If you are so inclined you can check out the Kolbe method, MBTI (Myers-Briggs), Blanchard’s Situational Leadership II, and Wilson Learning’s Social Styles just to name a few. However, I’m interested in just a quick and simple set of questions for you to reflect on to see if you have what your projects need right now.
Core Elements of Leadership
Leaders should be 1) visionaries, 2) excellent communicators, 3) developers of talent and 4) able to execute. Some leaders excel at a few of these and are lacking in the rest. Some leaders are extremely out of balance, which manifests in the workplace as employee turnover, project failures, or a lack of trust or credibility within the organization. With a few simple questions you can assess your own leadership style and set a course for developing your core elements.
Questions to Consider
Are you visionary leader? Do you truly understand the key strategic initiatives of your organization and seek ways to align the goals of your team with those initiatives? Are your team members able to measure their own performance to determine if they are furthering the mission/vision of your organization? Do you spend time thinking..just thinking…about ways your team can have greater impact in the future, beyond your current project workload? If you truthfully answered “Yes” to each of these…then you have got the visionary spirit. Good for you. If you answered “No” to some of these, there is an opportunity for you to add this to your professional development. Being a visionary leader is needed to continuously raise the bar on you and your team’s performance.
Are you an excellent communicator? Do you keep your team members up to date with your organization’s performance on a frequent basis? Did you provide critical feedback or praise to someone for their work, this week? Did you meet with clients to see how you are meeting their needs or any new changes happening on their side, this week? Did you connect with your internal peers to talk about projects, their work or the organization, this week? Is your team motivated to do their work and excited about the potential outcomes? All of these are simply signs of an excellent communicator. Communication is a 360 degree process; communicate up, sideways and down…frequently. If you believe keeping up with emails is proof of your communication abilities…you are missing the mark. Get out of the office or cube and away from your desk…walk around and ask questions..give feedback…share ideas.
Are you a net exporter of talent? When I was an executive leader working at Avnet, we used this phrase to describe what kind of managers we should aspire to become. Do you have a succession plan in place that outlines not only candidates for your position, but a plan to replace their positions as well. Not only your successors, but their successors. Does your named list include how you will develop these team members to take over your position? Are you fearful of having someone on your team who could replace you? You must embrace the idea of having people on your team succeed to the point that other departments want to steal them away. Become the farm team for great leaders and good things will come to you. If you are not developing team members to grow beyond their current roles, then you are failing them as a manager and your organization as a leader. Simple as that. Don’t let your talented team members go stale on your watch.
Can you Execute? The most important skill in my experience is the ability to take a project from inception to completion..on-time, on-budget and within scope. If you succeed at all the other leadership areas I have outlined and yet fail at execution…you are short-lived in your leadership position. If you are not executing and are OK with that…you are thinking wrong. You MUST be able to execute to have long-term success as a leader. Leaders who execute are moved up through the organization over time. Can you commit to a date and meet that date? Can your team complete their tasks on time? Do you hold project team members accountable for meeting dates? Do you proactively seek ways to provide resources and support to team members who may be at risk of missing a deadline? Of all the elements of leadership…you absolutely must get good at this. If you are not there yet, find someone in your organization who is great at execution. Strike up a conversation and see how they manage projects, manage work. You may find some great tips to foster your own development.
Next Steps
Don’t be afraid to engage your Organizational Development, Talent Management, or Learning team for ideas on how to develop yourself in these areas. Talk with your manager about your desire to improve in your core elements of leadership. Coach up to encourage them to hold you accountable for your own development. Don’t wait for others to tell you what to do…take control of your own destiny.
Focus on developing as a visionary, communicator, developer of talent and consistent executor of initiatives and you will find yourself being invited to take on more and more responsibility and moving up in the organization.
Would love to hear your thoughts on these core elements or the steps you took to develop them in yourself.
