Leadership 101

Alright, a big one.

I believe EVERYONE gets one promotion in their professional lives. Just one. It is the promotion to a role or position whereby you start to lead and be responsible for other professional people. I don’t care if it is a team of one direct report or a multi-generational team of 189. Leading is leading. Even if you do not have a team yet, that should not stop you from learning about becoming one and practice being a great leader. “Act as if…”

So I just went onto Amazon books and searched “Leadership”. If you guessed that the search results retrieved was exactly 131,049 then you are either a genius, lucky or a bloody liar.

That is a shit load of results for books from one website on one word.

There is a LOT to discuss on this topic and we could be here for days. But as you’ll no doubt be guessing if you have read my other posts, then you will realise I will make this simple.

It is Leadership 101 after all.

Leadership is not rocket surgery. It is basic.

What is infallible is Leadership’s definition on my computer dictionary: [noun] 2. Ability to lead. The ability to guide, direct, or influence people.

Another definition that I may have taken some creative licence toward is:

Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to

achieve a common goal.

And that’s it. Do that.

How? Well we can keep that simple too.

When it is all said and done, there are THREE basic things a leader MUST do to be a great guider, director or influencer. The 101. The core foundation of Leadership made simple. Do these three things with your team and you are golden.

Mike’s Three Steps to Lead 101: Goal; Role; Remind

1. Know the Goal(s)

Have them. Share them. Hell, get your team involved in creating them.

To have a great team and be a great leader, you must have a common goal. This could be business wide, team wide or simply for you and them. It can be shared outside the team or just between yourselves. That stuff doesn’t matter, what does matter is having a goal that is relevant and motivating for you.

Yes, it is that simple.

2. Roles to achieve goals

Each team member has to have a role to achieve this / these goal(s). If they as an individual do not feel relevant toward helping achieve the goal they will not be inspired to follow or contribute.

Purpose is one of the most powerful tools a human can have. Give it to your team.

This will also help with efficiency. Ensuring the right people have the right tasks to achieve, that the tasks are being done once, in the right order and that they know what happens prior and post their task will also enable them to achieve without you (true sustainability).

3. Remind with updates

People need updates, we need reminding of our purpose and we need to know if we are on or off track. Depending on what kind of leader you want to be, you can determine how you want to do this. But the fact remains it needs to be done, constantly and with consistency.

If they are behind or under-performing, you have to let them know. How you do this depends on the task, the delay and the people involved – but the reality is you have to let them know it is off track. Most team members will know they are behind already (especially if you have done the above two steps) and they will be waiting. It may be an uncomfortable conversation, but it is one that needs to be had.

If they are on track – let them know. Thank them. Even if this is just ‘doing their job’. Don’t make a big deal out of it, but an email or quick conversation is great here.

If they are ahead of track – recognise this. It doesn’t have to be through a big bonus or treat (well it could, depending on the over-achievement), but it needs to be recognised nonetheless.

Get creative with recognition. It could be an email or presentation simply recognising the person or team in front of the others around. This costs nothing except a minor piece of your time. You could have monthly achievement prizes; shout them for a meal, whatever. The key here is you are constantly reminding the team of their progress and achievement.

Now, do not mistake my simplicity for lack of significance.

These three basic, simple and ridiculously easy to do steps

is the 101 to becoming a great leader.

Yes, there are tonnes of tricks, tips and traits that we could get into, but again, this is 101. There is a reason we didn’t talk about fun v strict typology, leadership traits, self-direction, motivation, extroversion/introversion, fluency or any other leadership buzz words. They are ‘noise’.

These are things that can help but not the foundation on which to build your leadership legacy.

I will write some other posts later that are helpful like; leadership theory (traits), words to use (we not I), skills to pick up (delegation, people management, recruitment, overhead optimisation etc) and ways to think (read Attitude 101 right NOW - Leadership, similar to Attitude, is a muscle you train and can always improve.)

Trust me – do the Goal; Role; Remind and all that other stuff will either come naturally or not matter at all.

Happy leadership.

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