If you have these, you’re a next-level leader

You’re able to monitor yourself

A few years ago, I was training a team of 9 people. I am and have always been someone who values time and time management. With this training however, I quickly found out that was not reciprocated. We had 5 weeks of training and at day 1 they were all late. When everyone arrived (30mins later than scheduled), their team leader had an angry outburst and stormed out of the hall. The reaction, though expected, really affected the proceedings and this didn’t sit well with me. At the end of the day, I sat down with the team leader for a coaching session. He listened and decided to take action.

He took a good look at himself, became more conscious of his triggers and reactions. He worked on being calmer which put the team at ease to more openly communicate the challenges they were facing and what could be done to prevent this from being an obstacle in the future. It worked! In the coming weeks, we gradually went from 30mins lateness to 5mins lateness. In the last 2 weeks of the training, everyone was there on time!

This is only possible once we decide to better monitor ourselves. What does this mean?

• The importance of knowing our triggers especially under stress and in uncomfortable situations. When under pressure, we quickly identify areas that need to be confronted and changed for the better.
• Mistakes will be made. Simply knowing the triggers won’t make the problem go away. There will be a period of adjustments where many solutions will be applied to remedy a situation. Trust the process and learn through all the mistakes made along the way.
• Celebrate the little victories. I tell you every time one of us was earlier than the last we all did a little happy dance at the progress we made. It made everything all the more worthwhile and relieved the pressure of the situation.
• Reflecton our triggers (things other people do that irk and/or annoy us) and how best to control our reactions.
• Receive feedback.
• Be open and willing to unlearn and learn. I wouldn’t have been able to add anything of value if I had forced my values on everyone. I had to learn their team dynamics and work with their leader to create the desired change. In the process, we all unlearned and learned a thing or two.

You’re able to manage yourself

Of course, self-awareness alone didn’t fix our tardiness issue. It did change everyone to better be able to channel everything and achieve the more positive results. It changed our values and gave me a better relationship with the team I was training.

Great leadership starts with self-awareness. Self management is the ability to use this awareness to channel our behavior to more positive outcomes. Ample self-awareness is necessary for effective self management. Becoming more self-aware enabled the team leader to better:

• Communicate his vision and values with the team. We don’t have to compromise or sacrifice any of these. Instead he embraced respect, honesty, encouragement, friendliness and performance driven values. This empowered the team to deliver excellence and better execution.
• Set the tone for solution-driven conversations.
• Put aside momentary needs to pursue the more important goals i.e. the needs of many outweigh the needs of the one.
• Manage emotions and focused on the positive ones.

The daily challenge of dealing effectively with emotions is critical to leadership because our brains are hardwired to give emotions the upper hand.

Leadership 2.0 by Travis Bradberry

Are you a next level leader? Find out more in Part 2.