Be The Example!
Feb 23, 2022Once we’ve been intentional about charting a course for where we want our organizations to go (and to grow) in the years to come, providing a strategic leadership example - like the one we looked at last time - is an absolute must if we want to earn the kind of buy-in and engagement from our team that ever gives us a shot at reaching our goals. This is where every step we take matters to the overall example we provide for our entire team!
It hasn’t been all that long ago that I hammered the importance of maintaining high standards in everything we do as leaders, whether we think anyone’s watching or not! A leader who wants to earn influence rather than rely on positional authority alone cannot compromise their character or integrity in any way. To that end, I even put together an entire lesson in our Leading At The Next Level program a while back based on what one of my mentors taught from his years at the United States Military Academy (West Point): The Harder Right Over the Easier Wrong. But as much as that matters, there’s something else that is nearly as important for us to do if we want to provide a solid strategic leadership example…
Just like the strong technical skills that frequently earn our team members promotions into roles with leadership responsibility aren’t all they’ll need to be successful once they’re in those new positions, the skills we’ve developed to get where we are today won’t likely be all we need moving forward either! If we expect our team members to invest the time and energy to develop themselves, we’d better be doing the same thing. Regardless of how much we’ve done to develop our own leadership ability to this point in our lives/careers, we can’t hardly expect the people around us to put extra effort into something they’re not seeing us do currently. And even if a few of the leaders on our teams do, can we really hope to keep leading them in the future - especially after they’ve outgrown us?
A while back in a post called Why is Leadership Development, I provided several statistics that I believe make a powerful case for being intentional about it in every organization. Even when we do this though, it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. Each member of our team will need something a little different depending on where they are in their journey and what they’ve had exposure to. The key lies in continuing to develop ourselves so we can maintain an awareness of what can best serve each of our team members, and that also requires knowing them well enough to have that awareness!
As we set this example and we see certain leaders on our teams begin to step up their own leadership development, the door begins to open for us to work on yet another strategic leadership example that will keep our organization on the course we’ve charted. We’ll pick up there next time…