Depth of Leadership Will Fuel Your Agency’s Long-Term Success

Great leaders aren’t just born. They’re nurtured and trained.

In virtually all walks of life, outstanding performers aren’t simply born into greatness. Their natural talents alone don’t guarantee they’ll reach their full potential. Exceptional people have almost always been nurtured, coached and mentored along the way.

Because of COVID-19, coaching and mentoring of emerging leaders is more important than ever to help people fully develop their abilities and allow their talents to flourish. Millions of employees are now working remotely and not receiving the learning that exposure to the CEO and other senior leaders delivers through the daily in-office experience.    

As an agency owner in this environment, how do you identify emerging top performers as your in-person contact with staff is limited?  How do you maximize their performance, leadership, contributions and sense of collective mission without being able to be with them on a regular basis? 

The CEO now bears a more complex and heavier burden in developing the second and third tiers of leadership. The purpose of this writing is to help you and your agency become more effective at that key driver of long-term growth and value.  

Not only your team members but you too can become more effective leaders.

Leadership development and coaching are important to both:

1.    Your team. How do you strengthen the leadership skills of your key people?

2.    You. How do you reach your personal potential as a leader? 

Leaders now face more difficult challenges than ever. The purpose of this writing is to help both you and your team become more effective ones.  

The top ten attributes of highly effective leaders.

Based on our experience combined with respected third-party research, these are the top ten attributes of highly effective leaders that need to be nurtured in both yourself and your next generation leaders so that more people can take on more of the burden of agency growth:

1.    Stand by your people to earn their trust.

2.    Trust them back.

3.    Show your R-E-S-P-E-C-T. (Aretha was right!)

4.    Ask the right questions. Then be sure to listen to the answers.

5.    Customize your leadership style for each person you lead.

6.    Leader, know thyself!

7.    Don’t just delegate. Empower.

8.    Let your team members know you appreciate their value and recognize their gifts.

9.    Take risks. Be willing to fail.

10. Be passionate and inspire. 

Now let’s get into more detail about each of these. 

The most effective leaders stand by their people to earn their trust.

This may be the most important leadership skill of all. Highly effective leaders don’t assume they’re trusted just because of their title. They know they must earn it.  

This is a crucially important skill but it’s actually pretty simple. You achieve trust by acting in an open, honest, direct and ethical manner…all the time. Consistency is everything. 

When the people you lead make a mistake, you stand by them. After all, you’ve asked them to take on challenges and make decisions. So, you share their mistakes as your mistakes too.  You act, learn, improve and move forward together. 

Trust them back.

A Harvard Business Review study in 2017 found that employees who don’t feel trusted are less productive, exert less effort and are more likely to leave the organization. Conversely, employees who feel trusted are higher performers, put forth extra effort and go above and beyond expectations. 

Feeling trusted generates greater confidence in the workplace. It spurs people to perform at a higher level. Effective leaders have learned that they need to place their trust in the same people whom they want to trust them.   

Show R-E-S-P-E-C-T. (Aretha was right!)

According to a 2018 Georgetown University study of nearly 20,000 employees worldwide, feeling respected by their superiors topped the list of what matters most to employees. They ranked respect as the most important leadership behavior. Yet these same employees reported a higher level of disrespectful and uncivil behavior exhibited towards them each year. 

There’s clearly a serious disconnect here. Why? 

The cause may be that too many leaders don’t fully understand what constitutes real respect in the workplace. In those cases, even well-meaning efforts to provide a positive and encouraging environment may fall short.  

Don’t let yourself or your team make this mistake. Do you all truly know what’s required to provide a respectful workplace? Are you all in fact providing it? Find out the unvarnished truth via internal surveys and candid conversations. Stimulate constructive feedback and openness. Listen. And then act decisively. 

Successful leaders ask the right questions. Then they listen to the answers.

First consider these two insightful quotes. 

“Two eyes, two ears, one mouth: So we should listen and see twice as much as we speak.” (Harold Burson, iconic PR leader, 1921-2020) and “You never learn anything while your own mouth is moving.” (Lou Holtz, famous football coach, still very much alive)

Successful leaders do a lot more listening than talking. Per a 2017 Zenger & Folkman study among 50,000+ business executives (as featured in Forbes): “Leaders with a preference for listening are rated as significantly more effective than those who spend the majority of their time holding forth.” 

Asking the right questions will:

·       Build your knowledge.

·       Provide more informed direction.

·       Enhance your ability to influence, promote engagement and make the right decisions.

·       Help you understand rather than focusing on being understood.

·       Make you perceived as seeking to hear more than to be heard. 

(Source: Fairygodboss) 

And then listening to what you’re being told will:

·       Strengthen your relationships, trust and credibility with everyone you lead (and throughout the agency).

·       Expand your understanding of the organization’s culture and your impact upon it.

·       Encourage diversity in the thinking, ideas and potential solutions needed to grow the firm.

·       Increase loyalty, productivity and teamwork by showing that you care. 

(Source: Association for Talent Development) 

The bottom line: You can’t listen if you’re the one talking. 

The best leaders customize their leadership style for each person they lead.

We’re all wired differently whether we’re CEOs, senior team members, newer or more junior employees. We respond in different ways even when the input or experience is the same for all.  

The more you’re willing to create a customized leadership style for each of your direct reports, the more effective you’ll be. This is particularly important if you’re leading other leaders or leaders-in-training. 

Learning to manage to different styles (and to different motivations) is a skill that improves with experience. While it’s an investment of your time and energy, this will actually save you time in the long run, make you a better leader and motivator…and improve your team’s performance. 

You need to attract, motivate and retain the best people in order to be successful for the long haul. The best people aren’t the same. Adapt your management style to their differences and win.

Leader, know thyself!

More than ever before, leaders live and act under intense scrutiny. Due to their position and visibility, they’re always under a microscope where virtually every word, action and decision can (and frequently will be) hashed, re-hashed, interpreted and sometimes misinterpreted throughout the firm. Whether they like it or not, it comes with the territory. 

Leaders’ words have weight and affect their followers’ choices and behaviors. Being unaware of this hurts their credibility and influence. Leaders simply have to get it right.  

In Zenger & Folkman’s 2017 study, leaders who rank in the top 10% in asking for feedback are also ranked highly for overall leadership effectiveness. Why? Instead of making the common mistake of assessing their own performance and skills, these leaders regularly seek input from others as the path to self-improvement. 

The most effective leaders want feedback. The more candid, the better. There’s often a big gap between how leaders see themselves and how they’re in fact seen by their team. While it can sometimes be tough to hear, this is one of the most important things you can do to become a stronger leader. The leader that team members want to follow. 

Don’t just delegate. Empower.

Delegating work to others doesn’t just mean letting someone else do it. It means giving the person the responsibility and freedom to do it to the best of their ability and judgment…not yours. Effective leaders give others the power to do this. 

Sometimes it can be difficult to delegate. After all, you might be giving away something that you’ve personally been doing for a long time. Something you like to do. Something you’re good at. It’s natural to resist handing this over to someone else but, to be more effective, you’ve got to do it. 

Especially if you’re the CEO, continuing to do what you did to get the agency where it is now won’t get it where it needs to be. 

Instead of worrying about what they’re giving up, successful leaders focus on what they’ll be gaining by truly empowering others:

1.    Growing the agency, organization, division or department.

2.    Growing the firm’s leadership bench.

3.    Growing themselves!  

By delegating to and empowering others, leaders are then able to do the more important things in their job descriptions. For agency owners, these include vision, strategy, long-term planning, culture, attracting and retaining top talent, business development and more.

Effective leaders learn how to get out of the way. Their people will quickly learn how to do more on their own and do it well. 

Effective leaders let their team members know they appreciate their value and recognize their gifts.

There are magic words which make virtually every human being feel good and encourage desired behavior. Simple words like “Thank you”, “You’re right” and “We couldn’t have done this without you”. 

We all want to know that we matter. That what we do is important. That it’s recognized and appreciated by others. In the business world, it’s the leader’s recognition and appreciation that team members hunger for. Whenever warranted (or close enough), good leaders provide it. 

These leaders thank their people more often. They regularly look for ways to applaud good work. They do so both privately and publicly. For special above-and-beyond contributions, they might put their specific thoughts in writing by sending a team member a high-quality card with handwritten thanks. 

Everyone benefits. The levels of job satisfaction, engagement, loyalty and future performance will all increase. 

Maya Angelou said “They may not remember your words but they’ll never forget how you made them feel.” So absolutely true…and a life lesson for leaders.  

Take risks. Be willing to fail.

What do Oprah, Edison, Lincoln, Einstein, Dolly Parton, Steve Jobs and The Beatles all have in common? They all failed (sometimes repeatedly) until they each finally became enormously successful and highly respected in their chosen fields. 

People who say they’ve never failed are either lying or have never tried to do something new. They’ve never had a new idea and then thrown themselves into making it a reality. They don’t dream, wish, aspire or hope. And how much fun is that? 

Strong leaders dare to be great. They see no shame in failure. Instead, they view mistakes as being steps on the road to achieving something important. As leaders, don’t we often say that we want our people to take educated risks? If we don’t, why should they?

Be passionate and inspire.

The best leaders lead by inspiration, not intimidation. One of the most effective ways of inspiring others is to be clearly inspired yourself. If you’re truly passionate about what you do, about your organization, about your people…it shows. Others will see it. And they will respond in kind. 

Your personal inspiration and passion will build other’s belief and confidence in you. It will help them to identify with and commit to your goals, thus turning them into reality.  

In closing, consider this: “Leading by inspiration, not intimidation, is also a constant. Be passionate about what you do. Hire great people who are as passionate and committed to the organization’s mission as you are. If you can get that part right, the hard work of leading a team becomes much easier.” (Joel Curran, Associate Chancellor Public Affairs, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill)  

If reading this has inspired you to want to be a more effective leader or help your emerging leaders achieve their full potential, please contact Ken Jacobs at Ken@prospergroup.net for a one-hour complimentary session. We’ll explore how leadership coaching can help you achieve your organizational, career and personal goals. 

Developed by Ken Jacobs, Senior Counselor/Prosper Group