Having spent 20 years of my career in Leadership roles, in Sales, Customer Service and L&D, I have recently been reflecting on the lessons I have learned over the years.
There are so many things I have learned through experience and through others.
In addition to be being authentic and a great role model, there are 3 lessons learned that stand out as being simple yet valuable, and the ones that have had the most positive impact.
So here they are:
Lesson 1 – Team’s need a sense of purpose
In addition to knowing what they do and how to do it, you can make a big difference by sharing the reasons ‘why’ they are doing it, and what value it is adding. As a leader it is your responsibility to help your team to have a much broader understanding of the team’s purpose and how their role contributes to the company vision. Once you have done that, you will see they start to make a real difference and incredible things start to happen.
If you need some support knowing where to start with this, I can recommend reading ‘Find your Why’ by Simon Sinek.
Lesson 2 – Catch people doing something right
I spent a couple of years as a Leadership Development Consultant and was introduced to the great work of Ken Blanchard.
Too many leaders are focused on catching people making mistakes!
To quote Ken Blanchard “People who feel good about themselves produce good results, and people who produce good results feel good about themselves”
One of the quickest ways a leader can improve engagement is to notice, encourage and celebrate the good things that are happening.
Lesson 3 – Empower your people
One of my favourite leadership quotes is from Steve Jobs “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do. We hire smart people, so they can tell us what to do”.
Being a leader isn’t about knowing more than anyone else. It is important to recognise, encourage and promote the experts in your team. I have found that by trusting your experts and giving them autonomy to be creative and do great work, you achieve the best results.
As a leader, it is your role to provide direction and support when needed so that this great work contributes to the overall strategy and purpose of the organisation.
I hope you have found this helpful, I would love to hear from you about the most important leadership lesson you have learned.
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