Where does your leadership stop?
I helped produce an event last weekend that involved hundreds of volunteers and participants. I had a lot of fun and stepped up for some leadership opportunities.
I’ve been thinking about the lessons I got from this experience. The most important one is that your leadership is always in action even if you aren’t in charge.
By being around other people you send signals about what you want or how you want things to be. Other people pick up on these signals and reflect them back to you.
If you aren’t the person in charge you can create a distraction to the person who is. If you enroll other people into your behavior that distraction can become a disaster.
If you are in charge take note of the following:
Followers look for consistency. If you say one thing and do another it creates confusion. This applies to telling someone to act a different way than you do.
Unconscious signals speak louder than words. Be aware of your body language, facial expressions and tone of voice.
Actions speak loudest of all. The more you embody the way you want others to behave the more likely they will.
The people following you should not have to guess at what you want or if you are pleased with their performance. By just taking a few seconds to acknowledge that someone did their job well you set a standard for them to work with. This will decrease the confusion from your followers and increase their productivity.
Avoid cracking the whip. Positive reinforcement gets better results from the people following you, builds good will and loyalty and often heads off problems before they show up. Just taking a few seconds to acknowledge the work your people are doing will help you avoid harch words later on.
Use the whip when needed. Just because you avoid cracking the whip doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it. When time is tight, pressure is on or the people under you know better than to do what they did those are appropriate times to use a harsher tone and language than normal. If you are afraid of engaging poor performance you will lose respect and have a more difficult time leading.
Never make consequences personal. If you are correcting a behavior that is not the time for name-calling or derogatory statements.
Say exactly what you mean. Watch out for commands than can be understood more than one way. I was recently leading an event and noticed something going on I did not like. I told one of my managers to take care of it. He immediately ran off to handle the situation. What I meant was for him to have one of his people take care of it. It’s a subtle distinction and he did exactly as I told him but it was not what I intended.
Great leaders are also great followers. The tone you set as a follower is how people will follow you when you are placed in charge. I was given some advice years ago about always acting like I was in a position two steps above my current one. I think that is great advice.
How can you tell if you have been an effective leader? Check in to see what your people are doing when you are not around. If they are still holding the standards that you set and working at the same pace and with the same intensity you have done your job.