What is Leadership?
“Leadership is something you do and not something you are”.
Leadership is a skill you can learn.
At the core of every leader is his/her mindset, which often get expressed through observable behaviours, non-verbal communication, and actions, which in turn lead to the outcomes.
The core of developing leaders lies in shifting mindsets and expanding one’s understanding of how certain behaviours impact others and how certain actions impact self, team, and organizations.
The key to your success as a leader is in embodying a mindset that works in creating the behaviours and actions that are right for the outcomes you desire.
“If you want to change how you lead, it begins with changing how you think, and then how you do”.
The article on what is leadership by McKinsey highlights key ideas, concepts and how-to’s. Calls for further reading, though here are some key insights -
There are many contexts and ways in which leadership is exercised. Effective leaders know that what works in one situation will not necessarily work every time.
For 21st-century organizations operating in today’s complex business environment, a fundamentally new and more effective approach to leadership is emerging. One of it requires the leaders above all to extend beyond being boss to being human, showing up as one’s whole, true self (#5 in making key shifts).
The approach above enables leaders to practice empathy, compassion, vulnerability, gratitude, awareness, and even care. It empowers leaders to provide appreciation and support, create psychological safety so that their people can collaborate, innovate, and raise issues as appropriate. It also allows for celebrating achieving small steps on the way to reaching big goals and enhancing people’s well-being through better human connections.
In this article you will also find -
5 key shifts to create in this newer approach of leadership
3 levels where shifts need to be made
It also answers some key questions -
How can leaders empower employees?
How can leaders communicate effectively?
Is leadership different in a hybrid workplace?
How should CEOs lead in this new world?
And talks about different development models
What is leadership development and what’s needed for successful leadership development?
What are mentorship, sponsorship, and apprenticeship?
Adding to that,
I believe leadership is multi-dimensional and more one steers away from restricting nomenclatures and into creating the version of leadership that embodies your natural spirit, core values, strengths and motivators, the what and how of leadership is simplified. As you create more self-alignment and raise awareness to inside and outside, you truly enable and empower yourself and your people.
A leader’s role in essence is then to leverage this multi-dimensionality in leading multiple layers and complexities. And it is not about knowing everything or doing everything but instead knowing who can do what better, empowering them cognitively and emotionally, creating pathways and removing blockers for your people, helping them make connections and navigate hierarchies that may still exist, and supporting in creating mechanics and processes that simplify their work and making it seamless.
Leading with clarity enables leaders to mobilize and maximize resources while being focused on outcomes and deliverables.
And while it may sound clear and simple, my experience of working with mid-to-senior level leaders, has shown here’s where the largest gap and the biggest opportunity exists for strengthening leadership capabilities and building a robust pipeline.
The need to constantly contextualize, align, create, deliver, and lead with limited knowledge often creates undue stress and pressure in the mind, leaving very little room for learning and redirecting, let alone reflecting and recognizing capabilities that are imperative for personal, team, and organizational success.
Leaders at that level feel constantly sandwiched between aligning with organizational goals while empowering their people at scale to successfully operate continually. Support and strong partnership from a leadership coach helps them build on their confidence, clarity, and on their skills. They unpack their learning through doing and reflecting, to unleash their full potential and in becoming the leader that lead their teams with higher success.
I invite you to just for a moment pause and think -
⛰ What are you feeling now as you relate to these layers of complexities?
⛰ What are your unique strengths that make leadership easy for you?
⛰ Where do you find yourself most challenged in your leadership?
⛰ What are your core values, your beliefs and your underlying motivators for being the leader that you are and that you want to be?
As you reflect on these, notice is emerging, what are you noticing, where are you good and where do you need support? What do you want? what do you need? It is never too late to reset and restart.
Leaving you with one of my favorite quotes -
“The whole life lays ahead of you. You have only just begun”
-Daisaku Ikeda
