If you do not challenge yourself, you will never raise the bar and never achieve. This is a basic rule for everything but is indeed a pillar of leadership: nobody has the “truth” inside and so questioning yourself, making errors, finding solutions is a way to move forward.
This is not meant to destabilise us but to find a better understanding of how we can get better. And clearly cheating is not an option: it is important to answer frankly and, if you want to share the exercise and its results with other managers or with your resources, it will help to become aware of many aspects that can then be part of an action plan on the subject of leadership.
Let’s have a look at first set of points to analyse:
- Define your world. In order to know what you can count on you should list the main assets that you have: What are the resources you have? What kind and number of people do you manage? Which budget do you have assigned? Which interpersonal relationships can you leverage and how can they be used?
- Determine where you want to go and what you want to achieve; be sure to measure regularly how you progress toward them. There’s no achievement and path forward if you don’t set a goal that is challenging but not impossible. This is valid for you as a manager, for your employees individually and for your organisation as a whole. What are your aspirations as a manager and which as a team? What are the individual aspirations of each team member? How can you link them together? What does it need to be realigned? How are your results doing, comparing to the targets you set?
- Leverage the existing strengths. What are the attitudes, approaches, skills that are adding positive strength to your journey? What are the ones among the whole you and your team have that are congruent with current priorities? Just remember that different points of views and different level of aggregation may lead to different “tools” you need to progress.
- Be accountable. Seems easy to say, instead is rather difficult to practice. How are you holding yourself accountable for your goals and results? How can you enforce and grow a similar approach in your organisation?
- Don’t be a passenger, be the driver. Lead and do a a constant check of what your organisation needs. Do we need to adapt our approach? This is not only driven by you as a manager but also by your team if you share information and foster awareness.
