Everyone has the potential to become an effective leader, and success in leadership is about much more than “natural ability”. In fact, one of the most important factors in effective leadership is focusing on leadership development. A shift in your mindset is key to unlocking your leadership potential, because it involves transforming your thinking and decision-making processes. With a leadership mindset, you can inspire your team to achieve their full potential, regardless of whether or not you were born with natural leadership qualities, or where you may be in your own leadership journey.
What are the steps involved in developing a leadership mindset? In today’s blog, I will provide 4 tips for shifting your mindset in a way that will make a positive impact on you, as well as everyone around you.
Develop Your Emotional Intelligence
When a leader has made a concentrated effort to develop their emotional intelligence, the rest of the team will not only be able to tell, but their own emotional intelligence will likely grow in tandem. And a team exhibiting emotional intelligence is a far more cohesive one, and therefore far more successful. Team members will feel more comfortable taking risks and presenting new ideas.
The key to working on your emotional intelligence is first learning to understand your emotions, and then learning how to manage those emotions. There is an outdated image of a leader in many people’s minds. This image is one of an unemotional, authoritative, stoic figure who rarely shows emotion. The thing is, for many of us, when we think of inspirational leaders that we may know, or know of, they do not fit into this mould, and when we see a leader in the press or public eye exhibiting these characteristics, we immediately have negative reactions to their behaviours. Consider the recent press around Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover.
Leaders who inspire people understand that there is an emotional aspect of leadership, that it is OK to show vulnerability, and part of leadership is letting our emotional side show when it is appropriate and learning to control our emotions when it is not. When leaders get this aspect of emotional intelligence right, people are inspired, people strive to improve, and people are willing to follow.
Leadership Development: Defining Success
How would you define success? This is a crucial distinction that every leader has to make. If you don’t know where you are going, you will never get there. As a leader, part of the responsibility is charting the course to success. This doesn’t mean that I say and you do; on the contrary, it means that we work together to create a vision of success to which we are all committed. This shared vision will help us to move together in our pursuit.
Of course, as the leader, you will have overall responsibility, but by leveraging your leadership mindset, you will help everyone to focus on the vision of success rather than all the reasons why we may not be able to reach it. As a leader you will help to distil the learnings along the way, and provide guidance and support to enable everyone around you to be the very best that they can be throughout the entire journey.
Set common goals for yourself, and for your team, collaboratively. Be ambitious but realistic. There are a multitude of ways you can define success, so be clear. You may be looking at things like net profit, stock price, annual sales, employee performance or retention, personal development, or maybe something vastly different. But once you know what you’re expecting from yourself and your team, and once they have clarity around those expectations, you’ll be one step closer in your leadership development journey.
Take Time to Reflect
Some leaders fear that the moment they take their foot off the pedal, everything will fall apart. By creating a leadership focus that allows time for reflection, as a leader you will actually be able to be more effective. This is because, as we pause to reflect, we can evaluate what is working and what may need adjustment.
Without reflection, we can go headlong down the wrong path, or spend our time continuously fighting fires that may even be of our own making. There is much to be said about taking time to reflect, or taking a strategic pause. Taking a step back, even for a short time, will give us the space that we need to make effective course corrections and learn from our previous actions.
Ask yourself and your team reflective questions. Are there any glaring gaps in visibility or knowledge? Could your team be more cohesive? What learnings can we take away from this activity? Making time for you and your team to reflect on where you are at any given time will help everyone to continue to grow and develop.
Leadership Development: Stay Positive
Becoming an effective leader means that you are the one setting the tone for your team. There may be bumps in the road, and you will make mistakes along the way, but true leadership development comes from not letting those bumps affect your attitude. Many people can get discouraged, and even disengage when we experience some kind of failure.
As we actively work on our leadership mindset however, mistakes become learning experiences, challenges are seen as opportunities, and teams become more productive. As you continue on your own leadership journey, consider your own leadership focus. What does your leadership mindset look like? How reflective are you, and finally, what have you learned as a result of your last mistake? By keeping these things in mind, you will shift your mindset and continue to develop into an effective, engaging, and inspirational leader.
Our leadership development programmes are designed to empower leaders to empower their teams. Based on the latest research in the areas of cognitive neuroscience and organisational psychology, we can change the way your business progresses and help individuals operate on a higher level.