The topic of effective leadership has been written about in a myriad of different ways over the years. A quick web search of ‘leadership books’ turns up works as diverse as a compilation of Winston Churchill’s best speeches to advice from elite sport coaches and from amazing stories of human survival to stories about the rise of successful companies like Starbucks. To add a bit of confusion to the mix, many authors have explored various leadership styles – from ‘pacesetting’ to ‘affiliative’ and ‘authoritative’ to ‘democratic’. So, if you are seeking information that will help you develop your leadership abilities, you could be forgiven for not having a clue where to start!
I'm Jennifer Myers, and I'm one of the professionals on the team here at Gener8. In my experience over the course of my 30 years in the business world, I have had the opportunity to try out these concepts and styles for myself and have come around to what I believe is a sensible plan to develop leadership ability.
The first step is simple. Get in touch with YOUR ‘why’. Simon Sinek wrote a very powerful book called Start With Why that explores how the most successful leaders over the past 100 years have used their ability to inspire in order to lead their teams to achieve great things. It is this ability to inspire that really intrigues me. I believe we, as leaders, can only be inspiring when we have an absolutely clear understanding of why we do what we do – a purpose. Only when we are clear on our purpose or our ‘why’ will we have the ability to truly inspire others to support us in our endeavours.
Consider for just a moment a business or person you really respect and admire. Do you respect and admire the business solely because of the product the business produces or admire the person solely because of their position or status? Or is it the company’s or person’s values, purpose or ‘why’ that resonates with you? I would bet that in every case, you admire that company or individual because of what you know about their purpose – that it is inspiring in some way.
‘So’, you say, ‘once I’ve got my why sorted out what do I do next to develop my leadership abilities?’ In my view, there are 3 key components to becoming a better leader: 1.) your ability to focus 2.) projecting the right energy and 3.) empowering others to step up. Let’s look at these one at a time.
When it comes to focus, Peter Drucker once famously said – ‘management is doing things right, but leadership is doing the right things.’ How often do you find yourself focusing on the wrong things? By wrong things I mean those things that do not really add value to your practice or to your team. ‘Wrong things’ are often those tasks that are initiated by others or things that do not really require our special skills. When we focus on the right things – things that we initiate and things that we can apply our special abilities to in our practices, THAT is when we really move forward.
Being able to focus on the right things means being able to identify what those ‘right things’ are for YOUR practice. It means being able to manage distractions and effectively delegate things that don’t require your special talents to others who are better equipped to carry them out. Being able to focus means setting boundaries around your space and time. If YOU do not respect your time, no one else will.
The next key to becoming a better leader is to project the right energy. The people around you (your team AND your patients) ‘buy’ your energy (your mojo), whether it is positive or negative. So ensuring that you are consciously choosing to project positive energy is vital. As your energy goes, so goes your whole office. When you allow your mood to dictate how you behave around your team, they will have no idea what to expect from you as their leader. This will cause them to feel a bit fearful and uncertain each day, which can be quite de-motivating.
The great leaders I have met do their absolute best to always project an attitude of what I like to call ‘realistic optimism’. We are all human, and we all have bad days and personal challenges that can influence how we behave in the office. The key to managing these things as a leader is not to allow them to become a hindrance or threat to positive, respectful communication with your team.
Sometimes our energy can be influenced by the nature of the relationships we have with our team members. Here’s an example: Allison (the dentist) has had a difficult time keeping her personal friendship with her practice manager Caroline in perspective. She often confides in Caroline about her personal challenges and shares her negative energy. Allison then finds it difficult to inspire Caroline and hold her to account when it comes to the day-to-day tasks that Caroline is responsible for. I like to call this the ‘Leader/Friend’ conundrum. Often it is hard to separate our personal friendship with a team member from our professional relationship with them at the office and this can lead to all manner of misunderstandings, poor behavior and lack of productivity. Great leaders have learned how to establish boundaries with their teams in order to maintain positive energy and focus while in the office.
Finally, when you empower others around you to step up is when you truly begin to experience the satisfaction that comes with being a great leader. In my view, empowerment begins with clear, effective communication. The best leaders I have known have developed the ability to speak and write concisely and clearly. They have a knack for being able to communicate complex concepts in a simple way. They speak powerfully – from the heart and often bring conversations back around to the big picture and the ‘why’.
Great leaders are also masters at clarifying expectations and asking challenging questions. One of my long-term coaching clients recently instituted a system of conducting ‘development reviews’ with each team member and has been astounded at the quality of the conversations that have occurred. Even though he had owned his practice for 17 years, he had never invested the time to really get to know his team members on a 1-to-1 basis as it related to their work. As a result of holding these conversations every six months or so, he now has a clear understanding of what types of tasks they most enjoy, what lessons they have learned and what skills they are focused on developing moving forward so that he can support them. Conducting regular development reviews (not tied to pay rises) has made an enormous difference to the team’s level of buy-in as well as to what they’ve been able to accomplish together.
There is so much more I could write on the topic of what goes into becoming the kind of leader that people WANT to follow, but I think it really all comes back to being crystal clear on your purpose and your WHY. Everything else – the focus, the energy and the skills to empower - follow on from that.
So, if you have not invested time lately in a bit of self-reflection, I would highly suggest you do so. Have a good think around what keeps you coming back to the office every morning. What turns you on about doing what you do? Once you can articulate that to yourself with conviction, start paying attention to how else you invest your time – are you accomplishing your highest R.O.I. (return on [time] investment) activities each week? Take a good look at your energy and how it affects everyone around you. And finally, make it a point to get one-on-one with each of your team members and examine what their strengths are, what lessons they’ve learned in the past 6 months and what they would like to develop (skills, confidence, patient focus, etc) over the coming 6 months. Then go! Do! Take action!
Myself and the team of professionals at Gener8 Business & Life Solutions are here to help you be the kind of leader your team will WANT to follow. We're also here to support you to build a thriving practice in all respects. Get in touch - we'd love to hear about your 'why'! Phone us on 07 872 0566 or email us at craigandjennifer@gener8.solutions