Leadership is not about learning “nuts and bolts” or focusing on process. Of course, this is part of the leadership journey but great leaders are not just transactional, technical experts with a polar vision on moving things on. Whilst this should ‘feature’, leadership success is really about two things:

• influencing people and action
• unlocking the potential of those around you

Here are 4 focus areas that will help you:

1. Check others’ wiring and adapt your interaction style – Treating people all the same just doesn’t wash! We are all “wired” differently, have different styles and preferences so the idea that by using the same communication style with everyone around us and have influence is misguided. Learning more about communication styles and preferences is crucial so that you can become an agile and sophisticated communicator and ensure that everyone you interact with is positively affected by your interaction and remains motivated, positive and engaged with you – whoever they are.  

2. Step out of YOUR communication comfort zone – “If we change nothing, nothing changes!” We all probably know this but when communicating, so many people tend to forget it! Lots of leaders wonder why they cannot impact or influence those around them and they fail to see that by just thinking about how they are communicating they will see why things sometimes don’t work for them. By making a few small adjustments to tone and body language and by having a proper process that ensures that they confront difficult discussions and situations in a non confrontational way, leaders then start to reap the rewards of these small, simple changes and start to see and feel the communication improvements all around them – including the most challenging of situations and people.

3. Align your plan to the focus of your people! – One of the biggest problems that we see Execs who we work with grappling with is how they ensure that they not only are clear and focused on what the long term plan is but their teams and workforce are not only are clear on this but their day to day work and action is aligned to meeting it! Just how do we do this – well by good old Performance Management! Lots of people I meet are not clear what this is though – even though they think they are. Essentially, it does what is says on the tin! It is a process by which you “manage performance”! So many people think it is just about managing those who are not performing, those who are having problems or those who give us the biggest headache. Well here’s the thing – it is about managing those but ignore the rest of your workforce (including those stars and those who could be fast tracked) at your peril. They will easily fall into the first category if we don’t have a way of managing their performance too. When we do this we can be sure that we have a vehicle to ensure that everyone knows what the plan is and everything they are doing is in line with this. How else do we believe we can ensure our vision is realised?

4. Analyse your Board/SMT table! – A key characteristic of a great leader in my mind is someone who can demonstrate what I call “harnessed vulnerability”. What is this? Well, its certainly not running round with your “hair on fire”! Essentially, it is the skill of being able to really be in tune with not only your skills and things that you are good at but as well as this, be very comfortable to accept and talk about your weak points. The problem is, so many people are focused on keeping their “game face” on, they leave no time to think and talk about this – not least so that they can work on these areas. It’s not weak to know what you are not good at! When we’ve achieved this awareness, it’s important to ensure that in our closest circles, we surround ourselves with people who are not only aware of this (and you are aware of their development areas too) but they are different to us in skill, approach and behaviour so that our cross section of abilities covers all our challenges. Unfortunately, though, we sometimes fall into the misguided but what we see as safe trap of surrounding ourselves with people are like us, don’t challenge us or those who we feel uncomfortable with sharing any weaknesses with! This has obvious impact on our personal, team and organisational growth. So the question is – what does your Board or SMT table look like and what might you do about it? 

If you change nothing – nothing will change. Provoke your leadership self

If you have found this interesting article and want to talk about how we might help you and/or your team – do get in touch by direct message.

What people say about us:

“When members of your team stagnate having hit a ‘brick wall’ in their ability, but you know they can achieve more, ask Karen. She will unlock their true potential, and it is wonderful to see them flying high again. Karen and her team, have rejuvenated senior management leaders and whole department teams within the Group. She is the hidden sensation that has transformed our results in recent years.” – James Leavesley, JT Leavesley Ltd

“Our growth has necessitated the directors to develop the management team and engaging Dunelm Business Consultant has proven an extremely worthwhile decision. Developing leaders is not a simple task and what Dunelm Business Consultants provide is the expertise, independence and focus and ensured that we learnt a lot about each other, changed our views on many things and built trust between the team. Karen’s personality is very engaging but also challenging. Her ability to tease out issues and demonstrate leadership tools is exceptional and we would highly recommend Dunelm Business Consultants to any organisation wishing to develop their leadership or management team.” – Chris Winter, Care First Limited