What you do as a leader is extremely important. Why?
Because you are contagious! (Or you will be if you follow
these steps.) Leaders have an attitude that others want to
catch. Leaders have a charisma that others want to catch.
They have skills that others want to have rub off on them,
and on and on and on and on. So what you do, more so
than what you say, rubs off on those who follow your leadership
abilities. And since the one key critical thing one
has to have in order to be a leader is ... well, you guessed
it, FOLLOWERS. Then let's keep the focus on those folks
and make sure that as leaders we are doing what makes the
most difference to them. After all, leadership is all about
the followers!
Just think, what would you be if you had a great many
leadership skills that made you tremendously effective, but
had no followers? Well, if I am thinking straight here, you
would be incredibly skilled standing out there all by your
lonesome. Not exactly how we picture a leader. A
Contagious Leader is the guide on the side, not the sage on
the stage, and that is what any number of these steps will
help you to achieve!
- Call employees "those who work WITH you."
- Stop calling employees "my employees," "my people."
- Realize that employees do not work "FOR you," but
rather what you, or the money, provides.
- Set goals with others.
- Write your own goals down.
- Teach others to write their own goals down.
- Ensure that goals are measurable.
- Celebrate the achievement of each goal.
- Create goals that are both realistic and unrealistic.
- Provide goals with a timeline that is subject to be
changed upon the goal author's approval.
- Hire the right people for the right jobs.
- Encourage mentors at all levels.
- Provide value to someone before you need value from
them.
- Be genuinely interested in the needs of others.
- Have sincere desire, authenticity, and integrity in what
you do, or you will fail.
- Know that not all endeavors will be easy and will happen
the way you wish.
- Recognize that all followers will not agree with or "be
on board" with what you want.
- Allow for the opinions and ideas of others in all matters.
- Show respect for differing opinions and ideas.
- Find the leaders on the team you lead who have no
leadership title.
- Cultivate the natural gifts, skills, and abilities of those
individuals.
- Infuse a need to grow by teaching, rather than giving,
the answers.
- Allow for errors and missteps and mistakes at many
levels.
- Inspire persistence even after the first, second, and
third rejection of an attempt.
- Keep a cool head even in times when the world is
falling apart.
- Avoid engaging emotions until all angles have been
examined.
- Communicate assertively, but not in an overpowering
fashion when issues are heated.
- Act reasonably in even the most unreasonable situations.
- Express opinions and ideas professionally and openly.
- Avoid sucking things in until they become dangerously
like a volcano of explosive readiness.
- Realize that "home is not where you go when you are
tired of being nice to people"!
- Maintain an awareness of just how much your body
communicates.
- Remember that your body continues talking long after
your lips stop moving.
- Adhere to the ratio that you have two ears and a mouth
and use them proportionately.
- Talk less; listen more.
- Ask more questions than you give advice.
- Seek input from those closer to a problem than you are.
- Be interested in the growth of others, even more so
than the others are at times.
- Listen to the grapevine often and regularly.
- Connect to the first brain in the first 30 seconds.
- Build rapport with someone by finding overlapping
frames of reference.
- Fuss over others' events, achievements, families, and
friends.
- Be entertaining, humorous, or at the very least, fun to
be around.
- Engage serious behavior on serious subjects when
warranted.
- Communicate with others in a language that they
understand.
- Avoid assuming that your communication or personality
style is the one everyone else has.
- Learn to modify your communication style to the style
of others.
- Adhere to the principle that "communication is not
what is said, but what is received."
- Inspire creativity.
- Require yourself often to think about something from a
different angle or perspective.
- Use crayons to draw out a problem.
- Instruct those you lead to brainstorm using smelly
markers on flip charts around a room.
- Allow the team to pick the team leader, using a
point/plus system. (see #54)
- Count to three; have them point at the leader of choice.
Then let that person pick the real leader.
- Ask people you lead to describe a problem using something
from nature.
- Ask people you lead to describe a solution using something
from nature.
- Replace nature with a canned good, a color, a piece of
furniture, an animal, or anything else.
- Promote impromptu brainstorming sessions with the
leader present.
- Engage in active learning every day.
- Have a LIFE!
- Encourage all those you lead to have or get a LIFE!
- Reinforce the idea that work and life must be balanced
or both will be out of whack.
- Share your expectations clearly and consistently and
early.
- Give yourself permission to leave things undone.
- Let go of needing to be perfect.
- Let go of needing everyone else to be perfect.
- Relinquish the need to always have others like you.
- Become clear and comfortable with the fact that
leadership does not mean "being the favorite one on
the playground."
- Know that sometimes peers will become employees
when you are promoted.
- Show gratitude to those who can transition from peers
to employees.
- Recognize those who perform their job consistently day
in and day out.
- Learn the different types of recognition: public, private,
tangible, and intangible.
- Avoid giving a public person private recognition; he or
she will see little or no value in it.
- Praise public people in front of many, many, others.
- Share kudos and praise in public, yet discipline and
reprimand in private.
- Give tangible people stuff they can feel, hold, and hang
on to.
- Balance your recognition with those you work with
and their multiple preferences.
- Be spontaneous, as well as scheduled in your recognition
efforts.
- Only give private people public recognition if you
want de-motivation.
- Spend most of your time with those who are performing
the way you have asked.
- Observe what people do for others to learn what they
would like done for them.
- Focus on the end result: motivation for performance.
- Remember that money does not motivate for the long
term and becomes expected.
- Grow courage to have the tough conversations.
- When you are criticizing, address only areas of behavior
and performance, not the person.
- Maintain clarity on the fact that attitudes are not taught
or changed without the owner's consent.
- Criticize someone's attitude at your own risk.
- Never assume — well, ANYTHING.
- Know that your crisis does not constitute urgent action
from others if you are at fault.
- Micromanage only those who need it and only until
they prove that they do not.
- Be kind to new hires if you used to do what they are
being taught to do.
- Remind yourself that if you have done it for 30 years,
you no longer remember the steps.
- Make mentors out of those who still remember the
steps even if they need a checklist.
- Believe that people do what they get paid attention for.
- Micromanage problem employees until there is only
one option.
- Free up for new opportunities those who are unable to
perform at the established standard.
- Trust that managers are often promoted for no good reason.
- Recognize that managers have to have a title and leaders
do not.
- Exhibit leadership traits as part of who you are, not
what your title says.
- Remember: You become what you think about.
Monica L. Wofford is a nationally acclaimed author,
speaker, and trainer who inspires others to lead, rather than
manage. Learn more about Monica and her book Contagious
Leadership.
