Do you have the natural ability to influence others to follow you?

If yes, great! That means you have a strong foundation to support your leadership journey.

If no, that’s ok, because you can earn credibility as a leader by learning and practicing leadership skills.

Using the right tools, in the right ways, can help you gain leverage and build momentum.

The great thing about using tools is that they can help increase strength, extend range of motion, and bolster productive output. An important key to success is allowing your tools to do what they’re intended to do. A good team leader understands how the tools of leadership work and when to use them.

A seasoned leader may be proficient at using leadership tools such as strategic planning, goal setting, performing a SWOT analysis, or tracking KPIs, but sometimes, they just can’t seem to get the traction they need to reach their full potential. If you’re in this situation now, or ever find yourself in this scenario, take a moment to reevaluate how you’re operating.

Have you lost sight of the basics?

The basics are foundational blocks of leadership that focus on people. People skills are invaluable to a leader because no matter what business you’re in, you’re in the business of people. If you find yourself preoccupied with special techniques to perfect your deliverables, meet deadlines, balance the budget, or improve customer service, carve some time out of your busy schedule to revisit the basics.

Building leadership skills requires focus on yourself, as well as the people around you.

A common saying is, “look inward before looking outward”. This is sound advice because the formula for success involves personal development. However, focusing only on getting yourself to a certain “place” may create unnecessary roadblocks in your mind. The idea of “fixing” all your shortcomings, as well as acquiring new skills, can seem like an impossible task. 

The good news is that you don’t need to be perfect before learning how to be a good leader.  

Some of the fundamental qualities needed to grow as a successful leader, are being courageous, empathetic, and positive. Some people already have these qualities but need to strengthen their leadership skills, such as respectfulness, confidence, and trustworthiness. If you struggle in some of these areas, you can improve by practicing awareness.

Social awareness and self-awareness will help strengthen your leadership qualities and skills.

Awareness comes from paying attention to the environment around you, being mindful of people’s emotions, and consciously interacting. When engaged in a conversation or attending a meeting, listen carefully and give the speaker your full attention. If you notice yourself dominating a conversation or a meeting, allow everyone an opportunity to speak.

Be Human!

Avoid transactional behavior, as if you’re a robot, or on autopilot. For example, it’s the beginning of the day and you go to speak to your team about the production schedule. When you enter the work area, people seem a bit subdued, or perhaps just not as exuberant as they usually are. They acknowledge your arrival but are preoccupied with something else.

Clearly something is amiss, so don’t just steamroll forward with your battle-plan. Acknowledge the mood, inquire as to what may have happened, or what is wrong. Once you have a better understanding of the situation, your battle-plan may work better with some adjustments.

Look for ways to improve the situation by being open-minded rather than rigid.

For example, perhaps one of your team members, who is primarily a customer-facing employee, is having a family problem that is weighing heavy on them. It may be beneficial to suggest adjusting assignments for the day. Discuss the options of having someone else take responsibility for the primary customer contact.

Let the team be a part of the solution. 

This is a great opportunity to ask the team for input or what they think would be the best course of action. If their ideas are reasonably good enough, let them implement. This encourages the team and gives them a chance to take ownership of their plan.  Jocko Willink discusses this approach to building good teams and leaders, in his book Leadership Strategy and Tactics: Field Manual.

Let people know you care!

Don’t expect people to care about what you’re saying, when they think you don’t care about them. Make accommodations when you can. If accommodations are not made, people may feel as if they’re not cared for, or even worse, that they’re being used.

No one wants to be treated like a machine.

Generally, people flourish when they are recognized as important contributors and feel like they are part of a team that’s working toward a goal. Positive and negative attitudes spread far and fast. Take the time to acknowledge people as individuals and interact in a deliberately caring fashion. Awareness is looking outside yourself and paying attention to the people around you.

Watch how people act and try to understand what their body language is conveying.

Start with the people in your inner circle and work your way out. Understanding each person individually is critical to making connections. Those in your inner circle need to feel emotionally invested in you before they will be invested in your vision. Once they feel connected to you, they are more likely to influence others to trust you and believe in your vision.

Respect your team members as individuals.

Building respect comes from offering people the opportunity to validate that you deserve their respect; maintaining respect is virtually impossible without acting in a way that reinforces it. In short, put in the hard work, alongside your team. Kyle Carpenter, a Marine Corps Veteran and Medal of Honor recipient, discusses this very concept during a Cleared Hot Podcast interview by Navy Seal, Andy Stumpf, Episode 167, (35:38). Discussing leadership, Carpenter said:

“Don’t expect something from someone, if you’re not willing to put the work in and grind as well.”

Carpenter further highlights the practice of Marine Corps. leaders eating last. For example, a Sergeant Master will not eat until all the Marines under him, down to the very last private, has eaten. The importance of this is that it builds respect and creates an environment of unity.

This same concept is used by Simon Sinek in his book, Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't. Sinek details the importance of caring for your team members and creating an environment of unity to unlock potential. A unified team that supports each other, starts with a leader that displays protections and alignment by foregoing their own well-being for the good of the team.

Respecting others is also shown through our quality of leadership. Building people up to be successful learners shows that we care for each person as an individual, and that we value their potential.

If people feel that you are not respecting them, then you probably are not; or at least not in a way that they can recognize.

Listen to what your team members are saying, watch how they interact, be engaged and present. Practice intentionality to help identify what respect means to each person. It may take some time to hone your skills but stick with it because a little respect goes a long way in the game of reciprocity. Trust will make or break leadership success.

Do you trust those around you? If so, why? If not, why?

Trust is a critical part of effective leadership. In my opinion, if you have any doubt in your ability to be trustworthy, stop focusing on anything else and start there. Master the art of being a trustworthy person and then build out the layers of leadership.

Mistrust can be a projection of one’s own self onto other people.

When mistrust arises, get to the root cause immediately. The process of determining your reasons for mistrust may uncover outside causes or it may unearth sources that point directly back at yourself. Be open-minded and work on seeing situations from different perspectives.

Imagine that all the members of your team behaved exactly as you do.

Now evaluate what that team looks like. Does this team trust one another, do they behave in ways that inspire productivity, do they act in the best interest of the team?

To clarify, you don’t actually want your entire team to all be like-minded or clones of yourself. This is just an exercise to help you identify areas of weakness in yourself that may impede your success as a leader. While moving through this exercise, anything that gives you pause, is probably an area that needs some attention.

Move people to action, by creating leaders.

The knowledge, skills, and abilities of a good team leader are reinforced by practicing, and by teaching. Surprisingly, my greatest moments of learning and enlightenment have come while I was teaching. The benefit of teaching and creating leaders, is that it bolsters your influence in a two-pronged fashion. Firstly, it strengthens and reinforces your position as a leader, which will facilitate the continuation of producing good leaders. Secondly, the more leaders that believe in your vision, the more followers they will inspire to trust you. Liz Wiseman, discusses the process of deliberate talent development in her book Multipliers, Revised and Updated: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. Wiseman outlines the disciplines of “multipliers” and how to unlock peoples’ potential, rather than behaving like a “diminisher” and stifling their talent.

Have the courage to do what is right, even when it is unpopular.

Here’s a shocker, leaders are human. Our courage levels wane at times, but having a strong leadership skill set helps fill in the gaps. A good leader can muster up the strength to make hard decisions and unpopular choices.

When situations seem overwhelming and resistance kicks in, lean into the situation rather than avoiding it.

Managing conflict is an area that kicks-up a lot of resistance, even for the strongest of leaders. Proactively initiate that hard conversation, get to the facts, and focus on solutions that are beneficial to all parties. Patrick Lencioni identifies the fear of conflict as one of the five dysfunctions of a team that can create an unhealthy workplace. In Lencioni’s book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, he explains that when even one of the dysfunctions are allowed to exist, the others are sure to follow.

 Every situation is unique and requires a curated and thoughtful approach. To foster an environment that helps teams overcome conflict and flourish, some prevailing constants are necessary, such as belief in yourself, belief in what you are doing, and the willingness to empower individuals. Courage is necessary to be a change agent and to inspire your team. If you feel that your courage is dissipating or perhaps has even evaporated completely, sound the alarm, and put a plan in place to fix it immediately.

Genuine courage comes from a place of truth and lack of courage is a result of fear.

To get to the truth of your fears, ask yourself questions, such as, “What am I afraid of?”. Be completely honest with yourself when answering, even if it’s painful. To drill down to the core problem, keep asking “why?”. It may take a few tries and you’ll probably sound like a toddler repeating “why, why, why?”, but it will help strip down the facade and uncover the truth. For example:

 Question: What am I afraid of?

Answer: I’m afraid of failing.

Question: Why am I afraid of failing?

Answer: I’m afraid of being embarrassed.

Question: Why am I afraid of being embarrassed?

Answer: Because I don’t feel good enough.

Question: Why do I feel that I’m not good enough?

Answer: …

Continue this line of questioning until you get to the truth. Once identified, work to mitigate, or preferably eliminate the issue causing the problem.

Leaders that are secure with themselves can empower others.