Pulling in the right direction
Leadership is individuals working collectively as one. A healthy mechanism for doing this is being a catalyst for those around you, facilitating them in building the best possible result.
Three critical components are: taking responsibility, setting standards and know that they’ve done it themselves
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Taking Responsibility
How can individuals and teams lead themselves as a collective and individually?
The answer is in the question. Refining “how” processes are built and strengthened, is the mortar that binds the blocks together. It can sustainably make them stronger, take on greater challenges and hold firm under pressure.
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How we do things, day to day, will shape us and influence our outcomes.
I recently began working with a very talented young professional rugby player. One of the items on their bucket list was to build themselves to being a great leader.
One vital measure for developing leadership is looking at who is turning up?
The very reputable club this player was part of recently won a prominent fixture. During the game, they operated calmly under pressure, communicated well, focused on the task at hand, adapting when things took a turn – all great virtues of leadership amongst the team.
Five days later, at training, they had to cancel all sessions that day due to a huge bust-up and disagreement during practice amongst teammates.
Who an individual is can change day to day, depending on how they are being shaped by their experiences/environment.
When it comes to leadership, people have to be aware of the impact of things; it will heavily influence results, performance and consistency.
Here are a few questions that get a perspective of what leader you are.
- How would your coaches/boss describe you on a good day?
- How would they describe you on a bad day?
- How would your teammates/peers describe you on a good day?
- How would they describe you on a bad day?
The answers show the scale of how you operate and who turns up on a given day.
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Setting standards
Who turns up is something you can shape over time and, as a consequence, will be the foundations of what everything else sits on.
We are all working towards something, and that’s where the end game question comes in.
How will you be described when it’s all done? i.e end of Olympics, a World Cup/European/National championships/the Corporate deal/the Pandemic.
You can set the tone of what you think is an appropriate standard.
Like anything, there is no linear path from where you are to where you will be. Leaders are built and conditioned over time in small incremental steps. It’s always something that can be refined.
Knowing they’ve built it
By asking good questions, you’ll get good answers.
Listen first, then ask questions so that you hear the information you need. It’s like putting the purest and simplest form of fuel into the system that will work in all conditions. Try these questions at the end of the day.
- What was my focus today?
- What 1-2 points did I do well, and how did I do them?
- How can I repeat the above and reinforce?
- What was challenging today?
- How are you going to/did you adapt and manage that? (constructive)
- What’s your simple focus and attention on going forward?
In the short term, it’s hard to see change. Over time, the small things compound into something special, and when you look back at where you started, it’s contrasting.
You have to apply time to this, or you will never experience the benefits of what you can do. It’s not something that can be done a few times a year at team building events or a leadership month. It has to be done daily to be kept alive and strengthened.
This makes leaders and teams agile and continuously conditions them.
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In Summary
You can’t control what happens around you. You can condition how you operate and who turns up. This is exceptionally useful in challenging scenarios as well as when things are going well.
When it is not conditioned, you’ll use what you have indirectly built, which is like a lucky dip. Hoping for things is very different from making things happen. Everyone has this ability, and you do not need to be a World or Olympic Champion to do it.
