Many people assume leadership positions either in their place of work, their homes, volunteer positions, or even among a group of friends or your own intimate relationships. People need to be led and others need to lead. We’ve all heard of “born leaders” but the truth is, the concept of a leader in today’s dynamic settings changes from one situation to the other.
To help get clarity, this article intends to get back to grass roots leadership and explain it’s sole purpose – to be impactful. Again, many people get in a position where people look to them to lead, to make decisions, and to guide. All of a sudden, they’re a leader and they “learn as they go” to make the right decisions for their followers.
Business Leadership Defined
We often call people leaders because they are apparent. They have titles behind their names and accollades. They are our bosses, our supervisors, our team leaders, or our mentors. Yet, leadership is more than a position and to define it even more accurately, leadership is a way of being.
Leadership qualities tend to get obscured into what people should have naturally and what they should learn “on the job”. Yet, to do it right, the leader knows they are “it” when it comes to the bottom line so they must be accountable and overall willing to answer when things go well and not so well.
Anese Cavanaugh (@AneseCavanaugh) wrote an article in a blog I follow at Hubspot, and offers this description of what a leaders goes through on a day-to-day basis:
- You’re wicked smart and talented, but people shut down and get careful the minute you walk in the room.
- You’re great at your craft, but your team doesn’t love working with you.
- You’re leading a meeting with a group of awesome people, but there’s that one guy in the room who seems to be devoted to tanking the meeting via his presence and vibe. The meeting fails because of this person’s attitude.
- You’re in a leadership position, but people follow you because they have to (you give them a paycheck) versus because they want to (you’re inspiring, you make them feel good, your presence creates openness and responsiveness, etc.).
- You’re on the leadership team, but team tensions run high. You spend a lot of time talking. Decision-making is a brutally painful process. Your team struggles to get things done.
- Or maybe this is you: You’re killing it at work, making great money, and getting all sorts of rewards. The team’s even jamming, but you’re exhausted and burnt out. You are emanating the “energy of busy.” You’re struggling in your personal relationships. This is the fast track to a crash —when is the only question.
The reason leaders fail or struggle in their groups is because of weak impact and presence. These scenarios point to weak connections based on followers not being led. To be a leader you need to have impact.
5 Ways To Increase Your Impact Leadership Qualities
To handle situations like these, you need to raise your game and improve on how you can be present in situations that demand your attention. Anese Cavanaugh gives us these 5 things as an approach to manage your understanding of great leadership:
Stop saying you’re busy.
Just stop. ”Busy” begets more “busy.” The more you talk about it and focus on it, the busier you’ll feel. Your body will adopt the energy of busy, and that’s just the internal impact. Consider how this attitude will affect your relationships and interactions. When’s the last time you felt energized and inspired by someone droning on and on about how busy they are? Yep, just stop.
Intend.
Before you even walk into a room, remember that your presence has impact. How do you intend to “show up” in that room? How do you want your team members to experience you?
Take care of yourself.
How are you setting yourself up for success physically and mentally? To have the kind of impact you want to have without burning yourself out, you need to focus on how you nurture your energetic field. Little things go a long way: hydration, food, sleep, movement, your environment, the thoughts you think, the way you talk to yourself, and even the people you surround yourself with have a huge impact on your physical and mental energy. Focus on your internal well-being.
Get present.
Breathe. Be in the moment with anyone you talk with. Giving a person your full presence for 30 seconds is way more powerful than partial presence for an hour.
Connect with your why and your intended impact.
Why do you do what you do? What’s the impact you truly want to create with your leadership? This is internal energetic fuel. Let it drive you.
Work on being an impactful leader by being present. Raise the bar. Get together with other leaders and compare notes on different business leadership qualities others have so you can learn from others. Reach out to a group that has an interesting leader and take them out to lunch and connect. It can be lonely at the top and the only way to keep growing is to franchise the way other successful business people are leading their groups.
You spend a lot of time talking. Decision-making is a brutally painful process. https://t.co/ClScJdu9U3 pic.twitter.com/woj3wRQaRm
— Luxa Enterprises (@LuxaEnterprises) December 10, 2015
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