How to Evolve into an Effective Business Leader
Strategic Leadership Evolution
Why Leaders Must Continuously Adapt
If you consider yourself a leader. It can be to your advantage to maintain a measure of adaptability in your leadership style.
Change in trends, industry, technology and society are elements that a good leader will need to stay aware of.
Failure to do so can often time hinder and even cause permanent failure of a business.
To adapt to these changes is to remain flexible in your leadership style and approach,
to constantly and consistently update your skills and capabilities,
keep updated of knowledge of your field and craft and to
maintain awareness of current status of trends, client tastes, technology and such.
In this way, you will have the capacity to adapt to any unexpected turn and change.
With good positioning, you can aim to stay ahead of the curve by staying abreast of your industry, keeping a flexible approach as much as possible.
Leadership Self-Discovery
Assessing Your Leadership Starting Point
It can be a good idea to regularly assess your leadership skills.
This will ensure that you are keeping an eye on your current leadership skills, while keeping aware of anything that you might need to work on too.
To measure or chart your leadership an assessment can be a good way to have a starting point. This can then be used as a frame of reference to see how any subsequent developments are going.
Some things to consider when deciphering your starting point could include:
The execution of your goals.
The views of your followers/team/staff etc. (Interview or questionnaire)
Comparing your skills against known leadership models
Assessing yourself with leadership assessments (Trainings, Courses etc.)
These can be viable ways to see how you currently stack up.
This will then allow you to see any gaps in your leadership skills and to maybe notice what you can work on.
Now that you have starting point, you can now begin the development process.
Refining Your Leadership DNA
Identifying Which Traits to Develop or Discard
So it's time to develop your skills.
You are going to have natural traits talents. But some of your traits will work better for you, in this domain of leadership, than others.
How can you identify and decide which traits are best to be discarded or developed?
Well some criteria could include (but not limited to):
What comes easy for you
How you affect others.
Positive
Negative
Inspiration
Empathy etc.
Anything that affects your execution and results
Decision - making skills
Your confidence and courage
Tenacity vs Stubbornness
Charisma, Charm
Communication Skills
A good place to also help you decide what traits or skills to develop or discard can be found in a good leadership training course or by having a coach.
A training course can educate you on the current known factors of leadership by providing research and models for you to consider.
A coach can observe you or conduct research on your behalf to inform you of your current situation and of the best practices for an effective leader.
They then can help apply what works best for you personally and help with the development and growth of any particular traits that you have.
They can offer an alternative perspective of your leadership and how others relate to your leadership style. With those results, together you and a coach can discern what traits can be used more and what traits can be diminished or even discarded.
Leadership Expansion
Developing New Leadership Capabilities
Something a leader can consider is to be on the lookout for ways to expand their capabilities..
By learning (or deepening) new skills, they become more capable at their craft.
They are able to do more for the team and their business.
Expansion of skills is also linked to the expansion of knowledge. By having more knowledge and skills, this broadens the perspective of the leader.
Thus enabling them to perceive things differently. Able to see and take advantage of more opportunities than before. Or being able to tackle challenges more effectively.
Any skills that can help a leader to:
Better ability to translate vision into reality
Better execution of ideas and goals
Improved inspiration and influence
Stimulates commitment, drive and tenacity
Better Planner and strategist
Better Communication (Listening & Speaking skills)
Improved management skills (self management, teams & asset management)
Improves problem solving skills
and more..
These are just some ways that (by expanding your skillset) could impact your overall effectiveness.
Anything that can be learned that can improve any of these factors would be useful. But it does not have to be limited to this. Even learning skills that have a direct impact on your craft (any hands on skills) or even learning a new language, can be amazing to have in your repertoire.
Expansion of appropriate complementary skills can be very useful as a leader.
Shattering Leadership Limitations
Mental Reinvention
As a human, you are naturally going to have biases and beliefs that can either help or hinder your progress.
How you perceive things, based on your beliefs, affect your decisions and behaviours.
It could make you cautious or make you impulsive.
How will you know when to be one or the other?
Also, it may not allow you to see opportunities as they arise. Make poor decisions or just simply outright not believe something when it might be better to believe (or vice versa).
This is why it is very important to find out what is going on in your head. What your thoughts and beliefs are and aim to find out what effect they are having on your leadership results.
This could be one of the first things you might want to check out before you take on any particular trainings or education. So you don't waste your time on learning things that might not actually work for you.
The point of this section is to consider (if you are a new leader) coming with a brand new mindset. Leave any judgements, beliefs or biases behind and start to learn, as if you are a baby, the best beliefs to have to be an effective leader.
If you are more of an established leader, it could be a good idea to regularly refresh and update your mindset. See what can be cleaned up.
Find top leaders and learn from them if you need ideas and aim to 'use their brain' and not yours when it comes to decisions. It wont be easy in the beginning, but over time, you will learn and start improving.
In fact, it has been said that any belief is inherently a limiting belief. So with that in mind, what if you aimed to have no beliefs? How would that look like?
Something to be considered and discussed at a later point, maybe?
The Leadership Growth Routine
Daily Practices of Evolving Leaders
Leaders who wish to keep on improving and evolve into the becoming the best leader than can be tend to have daily practices that they perform.
These behaviours become habits.
These habits are important because compounded over time, they deepen and fully integrate into the leaders physiology and psyche.
As a result, they are then unconsciously producing 'high results' through their behaviours .
These practices can include, but not limited to:
Regular study of craft, service or industry
Visualization
Journaling
Meditation
Physical exercise
Skills practice
Affirmations
Regular professional/personal development
Regular meetings (Advisors/Coaches/Mentors)
Depending on the person and the industry, they will have their own personal daily habits. It is down to you to create your own daily practices. Practices that can help you have the edge as an effective leader.
Crafting Your Leadership Ecosystem
Strategic Surroundings
It is a important to be surrounded by supportive elements in your environment.
Mainly being surrounded by things that keep stress levels down (or out completely) and things that can only encourage or support your aims for yourself and your team,
With that in mind, it is important to be deliberate about the kinds of people you have in your ecosystem. Are they positive? Are they helpful? Do they add to your team efforts?
Any person that causes unwarranted stress or negativity is causing you to be distracted and to waste you time and effort unnecessary.
Being deliberate on how your working space is laid out, what elements are there e.g. plants, pictures, vision statements, positive posters, appropriately well - lit, windows etc.
These things are to be considered to create an ecosystem that is conducive to the successful outcomes and working environment that is, not only desired, but required.
Forging Powerful Leadership Connections
Network Architecture
What can help you as a leader is to join forces with other leaders.. Just you being around them could have certain elements rub off on you.
Also, you may be well versed in your field (or domain) as leader but you may lack knowledge or expertise in other areas.
Having an ally who can complement you with their skills in that area you do not have expertise in can greatly help you in terms of execution and improvement of results.
They could do things on your behalf, things that might be far better than if you did it.
It can also save you time. Also they could share insights or alternative points of view that you may not have access to.
This can help with you making better decisions and leading more effectively as a result.
Leadership Fast Track
Accelerating Your Leadership Development
A good way to accelerate your leadership development is to go go on regular trainings and courses.
These will help you solidify and fully integrate the skills you have been learning.
As you go over and repeat what you have learned, you will gain better understanding and the ability to utilise your skills better.
Another way is to have a mentor or leadership coach who can personally teach, observe and highlight anything that you need to know. They can adapt any lesson to your style, personally, so you can better understand and integrate more fully.
Regular assessments can also accelerate your development. You get to see the results of your current level.
This then allows you to see what you are doing well at and what you need to work on.
Once you know what to work on, this then allows you to focus on that aspect more. Rather than just blindly or working on your overall leadership in a generalized fashion.
Leadership Summit
Claiming Your Authoritative Position
Staking your claim by drawing a line in the sand or by sticking your flag in the ground, is a good way to make you resolute about becoming the best leader you can be.
Making that commitment to yourself becomes the driving force for you to do what you need to do to accomplish your task to evolve into an effective leader.
It may not be easy but keeping in the back of your mind the power of 'positioning'.
If you can position yourself well, it takes away a lot of the struggle you may have to endure.
Positioning yourself well can include:
Position yourself at the forefront of any upcoming, new trend
Position yourself as the go-to expert of your craft or industry
Positioning yourself ahead of the curve. (New technology or change in industry etc.)
By working your way up by consistent, deliberate professional and personal development. By getting good results and growing as a person and as a professional, there is no reason why you cannot reach the summit of your leadership.
This is not about being a better leaders than others, this is not the point here. This is more about reaching your summit and within your field, your audience, you are seen as the best leader to go to when it comes to providing a solution for your clients, community or industry.
Establishing An Enduring Leadership Mark
Transformational Influence
Could you become the kind of leader that is still a great influence in your field, even when you have departed?
Is this something worth considering?
Making an impact or leaving your mark in your field can be an amazing thing to achieve. Think of all the inspirational leaders that are still leaving an impact on people long after their departure from their position.
Leaving a legacy like that could be an amazing thing to achieve and go for.
