When you think of bringing your best leadership to the table, what is it that comes to mind? For many, “leadership” conjures up thoughts of standing at the front of a room, or at least sitting at the head of the table…guiding others through new information, a new process, a change within the team or organization, or telling them about new direction the company will be going with a product line. And to some degree, this is accurate. A leader is responsible for communicating information to others, such as changes and new directions within the company. But there is so much more to leadership.
Francis Hesselbein stated, “Practice self-awareness, self-evaluation, and self-improvement. If we are aware that our manners – language, behavior, and actions – are measured against our values and principles, we are able to more easily embody the philosophy, leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do.”
To what degree do you know yourself? What are you passionate about? What values really drive you? What are the activities that when you’re doing them, you completely lose track of time? Do you know what your strengths are? Do you know the strengths of the members of your team? Do you know what motivates you? What your triggers are? What do you fear the most? Because all of those things are driving you and your team, whether you are aware of them or not.
Emotional intelligence is absolutely critical to your success as a leader. According to Stephen R. Covey, research shows convincingly that EQ is more important than IQ. And it starts with Self-Awareness. In Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Bradbury and Greaves write, “When you don’t take time out to notice and understand your emotions, they have a strange way of resurfacing when you least expect or want them to.” And depending on where that is and what it looks like, it can result in some pretty interesting outcomes. Get to a place where you are more in control of those outcomes by taking the time to become more self-aware.
And what about your team members? When you read through the questions above, do you know the answers for each of your team members? Get to know what your team members’ values and strengths are, what drives them, what motivates them and what they fear. Then you will be in a better position to truly leverage the full capacity of your team.