What is Leadership?

Leadership is the art of aligning individual interests with group interests. A great leader inspires growth, shares the group’s vision, gives all voices a safe space, and multiplies outcomes.

My own leadership philosophy has been built over years of practice, study, mistakes and successes. Leaders do not need to be experts in all things. Instead, a leader makes sure the right experts are brought together and each voice is heard.

Below are quick overviews of the main characteristics of leadership, along with some thoughts and research on the topic. There is a lot more to say than I will put on this page, however, if you’d like more information, each section links to blog posts, training courses and books on the topic.

Setting Expectations

Leaders are responsible for executing on a vision. They gather the right people together and explain expected outcomes. People being lead must be set up for success by the leaders on their team.

Research shows setting clear expectations improves outcomes. ==TODO==

Setting clear expectations with measurable outcomes with teams and individuals creates an environment where both can be set up for success. This has the added benefit that no one is left wondering how well their performance measures up.

Clear expectations are

  • recorded somewhere accessible
  • reviewed with the employee
  • measurable with an agreed target
  • followed up on regularly

Unclear Expectation

We want you to build a new team.

Clear and Measurable Expectation:

You are expected to build your team. This is measured by:

  • The percentage of your quarterly hiring goal of X achieved
  • Your team’s attrition rate for the quarter (goal of X)
  • Staying at or under the payroll budget of X for your department

Communication

Communication is one of the critical skills any leader needs to have. Great communication can be broken down into the following elements:

  • Listening and Understanding
  • Creating a Safe Space for Dialogue
  • Setting and Resetting Expectations
  • Expressing Genuine Empathy
  • Clearly Expressing Ideas

Great communication starts with the ability to listen to and understand others. In his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey shares the following: ==TO DO==

An often overlooked aspect of a leader’s role in communication is the creation of safe spaces. The book Crucial Conversations has a lot of great information on how to watch for signs that a people don’t feel safe to speak. The two biggest queues to watch for are silence and violence. While silence might be the default for some people, when you see someone that has stopped sharing, they likely don’t feel safe. Violence in this case typically doesn’t mean actual violence. Rather, watch for raised voices, pushing back, rolled eyes, etc. I highly recommend Crucial Conversations to anyone looking to better understand how to recognize the lack of safety and tools to make it safe to share again.

It is also crucial that leaders are able to clearly express themselves. Communication from a leader should be clear, genuine and honest. Leaders should only say they will do things they believe they will do. In the cases where they are unable to meet a commitment, they should reset expectations quickly. Communication should also be candid, transparent and empathetic. The book Radical Candor does a great job expressing this concept. Kim Scott expresses this concept on two axis: candor and empathy.

Radical Candor

Individual Engagement and Development

Engaging the people on your teams, and helping them level up their skills plays an important role in individual motivation and team execution. A study from Gallup Research found that most millennials want coaching, development and greater purpose from their jobs1.

Aligning Interests

The Gallup report How Millennials Want to Work and Live estimates that turnover due to lack of engagement costs the U.S. economy over $30 billion annually. Increasing engagement and motivation is an important responsibility of a business leader. Research in the Transformational Leadership has found that aligning personal interest with business objectives creates engagement in the employee and business value for the business2. In the article Two Decades of Research and Development in Transformational Leadership, B. Bass share how leaders can help employees align their self-interest in their own development with business objective. Bass found that this increases morale as well as productivity.

Developing a Career Path

Developing a career path with your direct reports gives employees a clear view of what things are important to the company. There are far more things to learn than there is time to learn them. A career path helps the individual know what areas of study are most important for them.

A great career path will include:

  • A list of expectations of the employee’s current level, and how well they are meeting those.
  • A list of expectations at the next level, and how well they meet those as well.
  • A plan to focus on a small set of expectations that need improvement.
  • Resources to guide and support the employee in their improvement.
  • A regularly scheduled meeting to review progress, update skill scores, and revise plans (I recommend this happen no less frequently than once per quarter).

Learning Opportunities and Support

It is a leader’s responsibility to provide learning opportunies for the people on their teams. The best learning opportunities are low risk, high support and have clear expectations. Some examples include:

  • Finding small tasks that align with a new area of interest.
  • Providing timely feedback with candor and empathy.
  • Allotting time to meet with mentors

  1. How Millennials Want to Work and Live ↩

  2. Two decades of research and development in transformational leadership ↩