7 Key Principles of Leadership (Episode 29)

Transcription

We’re going to talk about seven key principles of leadership that you need to do to be a great leader. And it’s important that we talk about it because in today’s society often it’s kind of felt that you can be whatever kind of leader you want to be. It’s kind of what you feel, what your preference is, what your style is.

But the problem with that mentality is the same as if you were a carpenter and you just decided all I’m going to do is eyeball measurement. I’m never going to actually measure. I’m just gonna eyeball it and just work with it. That’s my style. The problem with that is if you do that, you’re not going to be a great carpenter because you’re going to get the measurement wrong a lot and you’ll have to redo things and it’s gonna be shoddy work if you use it anyway, and you’re probably not going to be hired.

It’s the same with leadership. You can be a leader in a leadership position and do whatever you want to do, but it won’t make you a great leader. To be a great leader, you need to follow great principles of leadership. And that’s what we’re talking about now. Let’s dive in.

1.      Take responsibility and ownership (and pass the credit)

Number one, to be a great leader, you need to be a leader who takes responsibility, takes ownership and passes the credit. As a… as a person, you are always responsible for your actions. Sometimes it’s easy to play the victim and blame others and the situation’s economy, but you’re always responsible for your actions and responses and what you do. You are responsible for that.

As a leader, you’re responsible for even more. You’re responsible for all that you do and all that your team does. If your team doesn’t meet expectations or doesn’t get results, it’s not their fault. Your boss isn’t going to look at them, he’s going to look at you.

You are responsible for the results that they get. So as a leader, you need to take ownership of that. You need to take responsibility for that. If something doesn’t happen that it’s supposed to happen, you need to look in and why and work with people and figure it out and try to fix the issue.

Casting blame only hurts you. When you cast blame, when you blame your team or your boss or other people or situations, it makes you look weak as a leader.

And it also keeps you from solving problems because you’re focusing on blame and playing victim that you can’t do anything about it instead of taking ownership and saying, boom, yep, this happened and this is what we’re going to do to fix it.

So as a leader, take ownership of all that you do and that your team does and work to resolve it. Not focusing on blame, but focusing on how we can learn from our mistakes and what we can do to keep those mistakes from happening again.

But great leaders, they don’t just take ownership, they also pass the credit.

When things go well, when they get praise, when you get the results and the team gets results they are supposed to, you don’t take the credit for yourself, you pass it to your team and to other departments or whoever was involved.

You be humble and pass it to other people. When you do that, it builds goodwill and influence with your team and others who you pass the credit to, and it makes you look strong as a leader too, who’s not trying to take all the credit for themselves, but is passing it on to others.

So as a leader, take ownership and pass the credit.

2.      Build and show trust

Number two, great leaders build trust and they show trust. You cannot expect to be a great leader, you cannot expect for people to want to follow you if you’re not someone they can trust.

If you’re a person who doesn’t follow through on their word, who doesn’t tell the truth, who cuts corners, who’s unethical, who talks about people behind their back, who doesn’t keep confidences well, why would someone want to follow you? So as a leader, you need to be someone they can trust.

At the same time, you also need to show trust to your team. If you feel like you have to control them and micromanage them and make them do the things they need to do, then you’re not showing trust. And if you’re not showing trust, they’re not gonna trust you that much back.

And it’s not gonna have much influence because they’re gonna have resentment towards you because of all that micromanaging and control mentality.

So be a leader who they can trust and also show trust towards your team.

3.      Build a culture of safety

Number three.

Great leaders build cultures of safety. If you want highly engaged and productive employees, then you want a culture of safety.

A culture of safety is one where people don’t feel afraid to raise their hand and say, hey, I made a mistake. Hey, I need help. Or come to you and say, hey, we have this problem. There’s a situation that’s happening.

They’re not afraid to share ideas or things going on because they’re afraid of being reprimanded or being judged or made fun of or afraid of losing their promotion or losing their job, or afraid of your response. They feel safe speaking up.

When you don’t have a safe culture, it hurts you a lot. When people fear speaking up, information is not shared. You don’t know about problems and situations and issues that might be happening because people are afraid to share it. You can’t make good decisions about things because you don’t have all the information. You can’t solve problems because you don’t know they’re happening.

You also have people who aren’t that productive because they’re worried more about not making a mistake than pursuing excellence. And they also end up doing the bare minimum just to get by instead of going above and beyond and pushing forward for the company. Having a toxic and unsafe environment is deadly.

So as a leader, you need to make sure to build a culture of safety.

4.      Focus on serving, not being served

Number four, great leaders focus on serving instead of being served. You see, as Patrick Lencioni says in his book, The Motive, is really two main mindsets you can have as a leader. You can have a mindset of self and a mindset of service.

The mindset of self is like this. You think leadership is about you. It’s about your career, about your growth. It’s about the rewards and perks you get. Maybe it’s a reward for all the hard work you’ve done.

You’re not about the mission. You’re not about the goal. You’re about your status and your position and you looking good and maybe even continuing to moving up or about the parking spot or whatever it may be.

That’s a self-focus. And when you have that self-focus, you’re not going to be an effective leader because you’re not focusing on what’s important. You’re not willing to do the hard stuff that you don’t have to do because you’re about you.

A mindset of service is different because you’re about serving your team. You’re about serving the mission. You’re willing to do the hard work to hold people accountable, to build those relationships, all that you need to do to be a great leader because you’re about serving and about the mission and about your team.

So my question for you is what kind of mindset do you have, and if it’s the wrong one, change your mind to a mindset of service.

5.      Listen well

Number five, great leaders are great listeners. One of the biggest heartbreaks and frustrations in work and in companies is when people feel unheard and that their voice doesn’t matter.

When that happens, people just stop caring. Don’t be like that. Listen to your people.

You want to listen to their ideas. You want to listen to their input. And you want that for numerous reasons.

First, because you care about your people and you want their voice to be heard. Second, you don’t know everything. Sometimes leaders get into leadership positions and they think they know everything or they know better because they’re a leader. But what they don’t realize, they often know less because the higher up you are, often the more detached you are from reality and what’s really going on.

So by listening to people and what’s going on and the issues and the problems, you learn a lot. And you can find about problems and solve them before they get big because you’re listening.

You also want to be someone who asks for feedback. You want feedback from your people to know how you can make things better, what can be improved, what’s not working so you can make it work better. But also as a leader, you want to ask people how you’re doing as a leader and accept that feedback.

Yes, it can be hard, but if there’s something that you’re doing that’s not effective. You want to know that so you can be a better leader.

When you ask for feedback and people give you feedback and you accept that feedback, you don’t argue, you don’t get defensive, you just say thank you, even if you don’t agree with it, because you’re about listening and hearing what people say and making sure that you’re genuine about it and that they feel heard and cared for.

6.      Build relationships and care

Number six, great leaders build relationships and they care about your people.

I want you to imagine a job that you could be in where the people above you, your bosses, and beyond that don’t care about you at all. They just see you as tools, cogs, as expenses to cut, whatever it may be.

How motivated are you? How devoted and loyal are you? How much influence would those leaders have on you?

Probably not much. People want to be known. They want to be cared about. Do that. Care about your team. Build relationships with them.

You see, sometimes people think, if I build relationships with people, if I care about them, then I can’t hold them up to expectations. Sometimes people feel like those are two opposite things, but they’re not. You can care about people and hold them to high expectations.

In fact, caring about people is holding them to high expectations. So, care about your people as people, listen to them, show them trust, and build relationships and get to know who your people are.

This is not saying that you’re BFFs with everybody and friends. That’s not what it’s about. What it’s about is getting to know your people and actually caring about them as people who have lives and have needs and have problems.

7.      Leadership is built off influence

Number seven, Leadership is built off influence, not position.

You see, the definition of leadership is that you’re guiding people through influence to the accomplishment of a goal. If you try to use your position, if you try to use authority to make people do things, then you’re not really leading, you’re forcing people.

And when you use your position to get people to do stuff, you’re not building influence, you’re not getting people to do it because they want to, you’re making them do it. And they’re just gonna do the bare minimum that they have to do for you because of your position.

But if you build influence and you build relationships with people, then people are gonna do it because they want to, because they respect you, because of that trust that’s there, they will follow you because of that.

So you want to focus on building influence and leading through influence and not trying to force people through your position.

Those were seven key principles that you need to be a great leader.