Stepping up as an Exceptional Leader

Influencing Communication:

A transformational leader must have a measurable degree of cognitive and emotional intelligence with the ability to express themselves with empathy, authenticity and transparency of information, applying both verbal and non-verbal indicators that recipients clearly understand and that are aligned to the overall vision.

Leading Change:

Often business leaders are faced with complex and difficult organisational challenges in times of economic uncertainty and cultural changes of the workforce profile and demographic.

In developing the culture change strategy, the transformational leader must consider the active areas within the business that are driving the need for change to proactively design and implement change management initiatives that appeal to an evolving workforce and inspire individuals and teams to achieve higher performance levels.

Influencing Outcomes:

A transformational leader understands individuals’ personal inspirations and aspirations which help them to guide and influence positive outcomes. By motivating and influencing individuals and teams, this leader works hard at developing high performing teams and by implementing ongoing learning and development programmes, they enable the effective collaboration of independent thinkers to achieve a common goal.

Influencing Outcomes:

Developing your transformational leadership style requires commitment, dedication and often further development to strengthen your skills and address identified weaknesses that may hold you back.

Strengths such as:

• The ability to develop a vision for growth and develop teams to achieve the desired business outcomes

• The ability to be assertive yet empathetic in influencing and motivating teams to achieve the desire to drive forward growth through a common and shared purpose

• The ability to have a clear understanding of how people and processes are inseparable to affect effective transformational culture change.

Weaknesses such as:

• Inability to effectively communicate a clear and concise vision that teams can rally behind

• Lacking detail and transactional focus and oversight resulting in a misalignment between the vision, objectives and desired outcomes

• Relying too heavily on emotions to influence change thereby ‘clouding’ the reality of the workplace environment.

• Unable to readily delegate tasks, roles and responsibilities to others equally capable in the workplace.

'To Err is Human'

As a leader we are expected to lead by example, to make the right choices and decisions for the organisation and its people. However, sometimes we get things wrong, and the outcome is not what we had hoped for.

We can’t always know whether the goals we want to achieve are going to bring about the desired success. Some of the greatest business leaders have failed in business or stumbled through mistakes they have made along the way before achieving their ultimate business success. How? By learning from their mistakes and doing things differently and better the next time around.

There are 3 simple steps we can take as leaders when something does go wrong. Be it a failure we are personally responsible for, or a failure by our team:

1. Take ownership of the failure – don’t blame others: “Your people know when you make mistakes. The real question is whether you’re going to ‘fess up. If you do, you can quickly regain their trust.” John Maxwell: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.

2. Examine what went wrong and learn from it: Reflect on the behaviour or action that was the cause of the failure to understand how the process or action could’ve been done differently. Involve your team in examining what and where improvements can be made to ensure the same mistake doesn’t happen again. Review whether additional support and training may be needed.

3. Commit and take action: Firstly, apologise if the mistake or failure was as a direct result of your actions then, take immediate steps to right the wrong. If you need to change priorities or habits or routines, then do so. If you need to change procedures, then make that happen.

It is also important to remember however, that it doesn’t have to be an actionable mistake or financial failure for you as a leader to recognise where change and improvements are immediately needed. Admitting to yourself to have fallen into a mediocre style of leadership is also the first step. And by making the commitment to revisit your leadership style to one of transformational leadership to bring about a Transformational Culture, will instill renewed faith, trust and allegiance from your stakeholders and employees too.