Develop your leadership toolkit
The stepping up leader will be mission-obsessed, put their people first, never wait to be asked and be their team’s optimist-in-chief
Building on the new leadership intelligences, we now want you to think about what these characteristics mean in practice. What does being a digital, inclusive and entrepreneurial leader look like in the everyday context of managing projects and teams? How can you apply these intelligences in either taking your first step up to a leadership position, or changing the way that you run things in your existing role? What will your step up look like?
To help you work that out, we have identified four core principles that we believe are central to stepping up and developing and fulfilling your potential as a leader.
1 Be mission-obsessed
Stepping up is about making your mission – personal and collective – absolutely central to everything you do as a leader. After all, there’s no point having a guiding purpose if you don’t stick to it. Everything you do should be in some way contributing to both your personal leadership mission and the mission of the business you run. Use mission as a benchmark for the decisions you make and the actions you prioritise. The purpose you set for yourself and your team should be the lens through which you view which clients to take on, which products to build and how you work together as a team. Keep asking yourself, ‘Does this feed into the mission? Does this help take us closer to where we want to be?’ And if the answers are no, you probably need to start reconsidering.
2 Don’t wait to be asked
Stepping up to become a leader means you can’t afford to be someone who hangs back and waits to be asked. Whether it’s taking on a new responsibility, shaping your next career move or trying to change the way your business works in some way, you need to take control of your own destiny and take responsibility for making things happen. While not everyone is a naturally assertive character, it’s important to recognise that the days when talent simply rose to the top are gone. You can’t expect that your good work will be recognised and rewarded purely on its own merits; you have to make your good work visible, be your own champion, ask to take on new responsibilities and make suggestions for things to change. And if you’re already in a leadership role, then there is even more reason to get on with making things happen. This is a world where you have to shape your own future: be brave and dare to grab the opportunity with both hands!
3 Put people before profit
Stepping up means recognising that you have to consider the needs of your people alongside those of the bottom line. While many might argue that the single most important responsibility of a leader is to grow and protect profit margins or ‘shareholder value’, this approach ignores the fundamental reality that there are no profits without people, and there is no business of any scale without an engaged, committed and motivated team to sustain it. We’re not saying you should go out and spend like crazy or always pay top dollar for your team; on the contrary, for most self-motivated people, having meaningful work and autonomy over how they spend their time are more important than lavish perks and more money. What we are saying is, make your primary leadership focus the building of a best-in-class team, with processes and priorities that make them feel like the best-supported, best-recognised and most-empowered team in the business. Get that right and the team will pay for itself many times over.
4 Be the optimist-in-chief
Stepping up is something that requires a giant dose of optimism and positive energy, whether you’re taking on your first leadership role or seeking to take your current team to the next level. Positivity is infectious and we enjoy being around people who have a positive take on life. When leading a team, you want to be the figurehead who is setting the collective sights high and also the activist who is spreading confidence and belief that you’re going to get there. A negative mindset can hold back a whole team, and a pessimistic tone from the top – even in a very subtle way – can be destructive to company morale and can quickly undermine your business goals. Always search for the silver lining in any situation and think of your role as COO: Chief Optimism Officer. Trust us, the realities of everyday leadership will provide all the corrective realism you need!
