In my opinion effective leadership is partially learnt, partially something that you're born with, and very much something that you can improve upon by learning from others - what I like to call the ‘Secrets of Effective Leadership'. The following is part three of my blog series on ‘The Secrets of Effective Leadership'. Part two can be found here.
"Knowing how to get visibility and give it"
I've seen so many talented individuals who do incredible work, but fail to get the recognition that they deserve. Perhaps they are being modest and don't advertise their accomplishments, perhaps they shy away from the spotlight, or perhaps their boss and colleagues aren't good at creating that visibility for them? Nevertheless, an effective leader will learn the ropes of how to get and give visibility and do so without coming across as arrogant.
Gaining visibility is critical to increasing influence and leverage amongst your peers and subordinates - essential for effective leadership. How do you gain visibility? There's no fixed answer for this because it really depends on the environment you're working in and the type of people that you are working with. Sharing and broadcasting successes, especially when it's a team-oriented accomplishment, is one way of gaining visibility. Taking on high profile projects is also another way. Informing your boss and upper management about your wins, in a manner that isn't considered brown-nosing, is another method. My old manager always used to encourage sending an occasional status update to upper management on a project that was going exceptional in an effort to gain visibility - this always seemed to be good advice. What was interesting was that my boss would always follow-up with an email of encouragement and praise, with my upper management copied on it - those emails would always fire me up and make me want to do better and more.
It's not all about gaining visibility; it's also about giving visibility to those around you. Effective leaders create visibility for those around them. It's not easy for an individual to advertise his/her accomplishments, but it is easy for a leader to advertise it for them. Creating visibility is something that is easy to do and is very much appreciated by others - an easy way to develop a good reputation and following. Further, it encourages others to do the same.
"Managing expectations/Managing your boss"
In part two of this blog series, I talked about quality versus quantity and the importance of not spreading yourself out too thin. Managing expectations and especially one's boss, is critical to getting the right quality versus quantity mix. In my experience, effective leaders are good at managing expectations; they under-promise and over-deliver. They know how to say ‘no' without burning bridges and hurting their reputation, and when they over-deliver on their promise they are praised. How do they do this? I definitely still have a lot to learn on this one but here's what I do know: when you're at that critical moment when your boss is piling on an additional tasks, take a minute to think about things before committing. Think about how it's going to impact your ability to perform on other tasks and whether you have the physical capability and resources to deliver up to your own expectations. A former mentor of mine always used to tell me that it takes a long time to develop a strong reputation, but only one screw-up to lose it all. Under-delivering and failing on a commitment can easily be considered a screw-up and have undesired effects on one's reputation. Another mentor used to tell me that a good leader will protect their reputation at all costs. The point being that effective leaders seem to manage expectations well in order to protect their reputation, and are a good at developing relationships with their bosses such that they can say ‘no' without disappointing them.
"Communicating for your audience"
I am convinced that good communications skills are imperative for effective leadership. What I've noticed is that good leaders not only communicate often but do so with their audience in mind. I always find it humorous when a presentation is made using technical jargon and acronyms that are not understood by 75% of the crowd. Sure, complicated verbiage sounds great and may make you look smart but you may be missing the boat with most of your audience. Effective communication is about getting the message across, about energizing your audience, and about earning trust. Effective leaders understand their audience and will find a way to reach out to everyone - They will tweak their communication accordingly from a content and delivery perspective. What I've noticed over time is that the good leaders communicate in multiple ways, are visible and are accessible via email, town hall meetings, open-door policies, casual drop-by's etc. My old boss, whom I look up to very much, used to walk the floor at least once a day spending at least an hour chatting with all his subordinates; it was a perfect opportunity to voice concerns, give a quick status update, and develop a relationship. My upper management was always captivating at the monthly town hall meetings because they used language that we all understood, and they made sense of complicated business slides in layman's terms. Further, they always understood the morale level of the room and made a conscious effort to find a suitable way to get everyone re-energized.
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As I mentioned at the start of Part 1 of this blog series; perhaps it is premature based on my limited years of experience and young age to have such strong opinions and beliefs about leadership - but I do believe that it is easy to spot out an effective leader because they stand out like sore thumbs. The points mentioned throughout this blog series are my opinion of how and why they stand out and are surely practices I will be carrying forward in my leadership journey.
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