The need for visionary, transformational leaders becomes more prevalent every day as our workforce continues to evolve, our businesses adapt to change, and workplace culture becomes more important to our people. People deserve leaders who care and who desire to leave a positive leadership legacy.
If you are looking for a couple of additions to your personal development approach and to build your own positive leadership legacy, here are a few actions to try in the new year:
Maximize everyone. Make everyone on your team feel bigger and more confident in themselves. When people on your team leave a conversation with you, do they feel like they can take on the world or do they feel demoralized or diminished? When they make a mistake do they feel ashamed and scared to try something new? Every interaction you have with people provides a wonderful opportunity for you to show how much you value and need them. Encourage continuously.
Create leadership principles. If you are striving for cultural change, start with yourself and fellow leaders. Work with your peers to establish a set of principles to drive your decisions. Iterate the creation process with your people and get their input. Here is an example but make them your own. Once created, live by them and hold each other accountable.
Unabashedly serve. Become much more observant by looking for areas to serve your teams. Look and listen for the most pressing need of each individual and take action when you can. Look beyond bringing in the occasional food for the team and find ways to roll up your sleeves and get creative.
Change the status quo. Beyond just questioning the status quo, find ways to start changing it. For real, this time. Is your organization still using obsolete or ineffective performance management techniques? Is dysfunction lurking around every corner because “this is how we have always done things?” Are your meetings a drudgery? Shake it up and do something entirely different like Dropbox does. Find one big thing to change and start doing it this year.
Make 2013 the year you bring your leadership to a transformative level and if you are already there, start mentoring others!
