Taking Leadership Personally

Build Leadership Presence: A Foundation for Trust

While these four principles [trust, abundance, create value, and demand driven] are interconnected and support each other, trust is the keystone. If trust is not present in the environment, the benefit of embracing the other three principles is greatly diminished.
- Principles for an Adaptive Organization

Often, the skills that earn you your first leadership position aren't the skills that will make you an effective leader.  This transition, from being an expert individual contributor to being in charge of a team, can be very jarring!

Consortium Members report that a first leadership role can feel both isolating and disorienting. As an individual contributor, you generally have control over the quality of your own work. As a leader, your success is dependent on the work of others.  Additionally, you may be receiving less feedback about your performance than you are used to, and the feedback you do receive can feel vague.  A mentor or support network can be very helpful in reminding you that: 

1. Uncomfortable conversations and unpopular decisions are part of the role
2. Not everyone will like you, and that's okay
3. You're going to be wrong at some point, and that can be an opportunity to build trust

Dave Cooper, a Navy SEAL, put it this way: “The most important words a leader can say is, ‘I screwed that up.’”

- Daniel Coyle, author of The Culture Code

Leadership presence is a skill that can be built with intention and self-reflection. Developing your own leadership strategy - how you want to show up - makes a huge difference in your success and the trust you build with your team.  Being explicit about your own values and vision allows you to:

• act with integrity and consistency
• communicate with clarity 
• navigate ambiguity and paradox (make decisions in the absence of information, and/or when multiple conflicting things are true) 
• identify and implement appropriate boundaries for yourself and your team
• chart your own performance and growth

It is much easier to manage your own self-doubt, demonstrate empathy, embrace flexibility, and be open to other ideas when you know what you personally stand for.  Whether or not we intend to, we lead by example, and being intentional about how we want to show up informs and impacts our team culture and success.

Get the Most Out of Your Team: Leverage Abundance

Competition for things that could operate under a model of abundance severely stifles collaboration and creativity. Learning, growth, teamwork, and recognition thrive in an environment of abundance. 
- Principles for an Adaptive Organization

Looking after a team of people and their performance requires a different perspective than contributing as an individual. As a leader, you are responsible for creating conditions under which individuals can thrive.  

Dave Cutler, longtime Consortium Board Member and Innovator reminds us, "You get what you inspect, not what you expect." Take a careful look at the metrics and measures in place for your team. Do they support or conflict with stated goals or intended outcomes?  Do they encourage collaboration or competition within your team?

To get the most out of a team, consider what really motivates people. 

The three key elements in enduring motivation are autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Autonomy is having a measure of control over what we do and how we do it. Mastery is making progress and getting better at something that matters. Purpose is doing something that makes a difference in the world or a contribution to others.

-Daniel Pink, author of Drive

Leveraging the motivators of autonomy, mastery, and purpose requires discernment. Geography and culture (corporate and otherwise) impact how variations on these ideas will be embraced. Daniel Pink says, "Autonomy is having a measure of control over what we do." There is a balance to be struck between collaboration and providing direction. While some level of collaboration feels like autonomy and can certainly help a team understand and buy-in to their purpose, teams also want a leader to set an agenda and inspire action.

Consortium Members report that leaders who get the most out of their teams embrace the idea that wins are celebrated as a team, while failures are the responsibility of the leader. Leaders who are quick to give credit where credit is due, and who spread the word of their team's success are leaders that individuals want to work for.  Team culture takes care of itself for leaders who focus on setting clear expectations, listening to feedback, and providing mentorship, accountability, and fair evaluation. 

Leadership can be uncomfortable work. Delegation is the hardest thing to learn, and is required for sustainable success. Don't avoid difficult conversations. Allowing people to fail can be painful. Not everyone is fixable.

"Not getting clear with a colleague about your expectations because it feels too hard, yet holding them accountable or blaming them for not delivering is unkind."

- Brené Brown, author of Dare to Lead

Communicate Strategy and Vision: Reinforce Creating Value

Understanding why promotes better decisions, enables creativity, and results in better outcomes. Employees will do better work when they understand the purpose, mission, values, and brand promise of the organization. 
- Principles for an Adaptive Organization

Leadership is largely about making sure everyone understands why. Communication moves in all directions; you have to manage up, down, and across the organization.  Understanding and communicating how your team's work aligns with and supports the vision of the organization is a powerful way to keep people interested in the good work you're doing.

People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.

- Simon Sinek, author of Start With Why (and the Golden Circle)

A Strategic Framework which connects the goals of the stakeholders to the work and measurements of the team, can help structure a consistent story. This should include both short- and long-term goals to encourage continuity, and can provide guidance about what to communicate to who.

• When managing up, focus on communicating how your team is contributing to your leader's goals.
• When managing across, at as advocate for your team. Help your peers understand how your team's work is contributing to organizational outcomes.
• When managing your team, identify what success looks like: make sure they understand all the outcomes they're aiming for.  Involve them in identifying the problems you are trying to solve, and get alignment before execution. 

Think about how you're communicating your team's goals, activities, and outcomes, and their connection to the goals of other parts of the organization.  There are many resources available about the Rule of 7 or "seven times, seven ways." 

Interpreting and connecting organizational goals to team goals, and communicating those through ongoing change, is one of the most important functions of a leader.

Navigate Ambiguity: React to Demand 

In the face of ever-increasing change and complexity, a sense-and-respond model is more efficient and agile. We are part of systems that we can influence, but cannot control. Relying on rigid, standardized processes to approach any problem, regardless of the nature of the situation does not work for adaptive organizations. Identify the dynamic networks in play, and use the appropriate approach based on the situation.
- Principles for an Adaptive Organization

Leaders are often called upon to make decisions for which they don't have all of the information, or when multiple conflicting things are true.  Sometimes this has to do with a sense of urgency, and sometimes this is because we are working within systems in which we can't know everything.  This is one scenario in which being clear on our intended outcomes is helpful; it gives us a way to remain directionally correct while also responding to demand in the moment.

Your team will look to you for direction and clarity, and sometimes that might look like "let's start here and see what happens." Clearly communicating intended outcomes and encouraging and acting on feedback will facilitate any necessary pivots.  Understanding your own relationship to risk, and having a mentor can be very helpful here. 

Situations which are ambiguous or uncertain are an opportunity to consider all of the information that is available to you. This might require managing your own emotions or fight-or-flight response in order to be able to hear opinions, see patterns, ask questions, and sense dynamics.

Consider your personal strategies for dealing with big emotions in order to have access to your best problem-solving skills, for example: taking a sip of water or a deep breath, or feeling your feet on the floor.  A portable, repeatable, steadying action can be a huge help.

"Leaders' nervous systems set tone. [...] When we are unprepared, ungrounded, or overwhelmed, it can stop us from seeing things clearly."

- Simon Powers, author of Deeper Change

You Can Do It

Being a leader is complex, challenging, important work. You will be faced with multiple, sometimes conflicting, priorities and multiple, sometimes conflicting, perspectives. You may be expected to have some kind of control over outcomes that no one can reasonably dictate.  It takes practice to create an environment in which people feel a sense of empathy, trust, and adaptability.

The way you show up is one of the most powerful tools you have to influence the system you're in; what you model sets the expectation for the way others will interact. Giving some thought to your leadership presence, how you can get the most out of your team, how you're communicating vision, and how you're dealing with ambiguity lays the groundwork for your growth as a leader. 

While this resource invites you to think about taking leadership personally, remember that you are not alone in this endeavor. Everyone in the system has a part in co-creating the system, and individuals are responsible for how they show up.

Connect with the leaders who contributed to this resource (and many others) with the Consortium for Service Innovation!