How Are You Viewed By Those in Your Sphere-of-Influence?
Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.
Success is a science. If you have the conditions, you get the result.
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.
Many, if not most leaders, regardless of expertise or tenure, are likely proficient in at least a few of the essential domains of the 360° of directional leadership, but very few are sufficiently proficient at managing across ALL domains – managing down AND managing up AND managing across AND managing within.
Here are some tips:
Directional Leadership Explained
Let’s break it down.
Managing DOWN – The Most MISMANAGED Direction
The Sphere: With direct reports, other employees, and support staff directly or indirectly affiliated with you and your organization – and the direction of leadership that may seem easiest, but is actually quite difficult to do consistently well.
The Impact of Doing it Poorly: Increasing employee stress and strain; obstructing their productivity; eroding their trust/loyalty; turnover; lackluster performance – especially when you need it most.
Managing UP – The Most UNDERUTILIZED Direction
The Sphere: With bosses, more senior executives, board members, company stakeholders and influencers – and the direction of leadership that leaders mistakenly think they have little, or no, control over, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
The Impact of Doing it Poorly: Creating unnecessary conflict; diluting organizational focus; being left out of important discussions and decisions; disappointing performance reviews; underwhelming salary and bonus treatments; countless lost opportunities to be mentored or made privy to really helpful information.
Managing ACROSS – The Most DISCOUNTED Direction
The Sphere: With peers, and externally, with vendor contacts, customers, and other industry professionals you may, or may not, consider colleagues – and the direction of leadership that can help make you surprisingly more effective and successful because pretty much everything that you want to accomplish is going to require significant lateral/horizontal collaboration to achieve.
The Impact of Doing it Poorly: Weakening camaraderie; playing bad politics; derailing others’ initiatives; failing the gain the support you need to further key goals and objectives; loss of social capital; increased isolation.
But to be truly successful, leaders must not only excel in these three domains of directional leadership they must master the full 360°, which includes a critical, game-changing, fourth domain:
Managing WITHIN – The Most POWERFUL Direction
The Sphere: Your private thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and attitudes that determine the choices you make and behaviors you engage in – which is what makes it, decidedly, the most challenging, but direct route to accelerating your overall impact, influence, and Leadership Competency Growth.
The Impact of Doing it Poorly: Not recognizing your impact; not taking responsibility for your impact; Not having sufficient F.O.C.U.S. in what you do; not learning from your mistakes; seeming tone deaf; being pigeonholed into low-level positions and low-visibility assignments.
LeadershipTraction demystifies the full 360° of directional leadership – through a variety of counter-intuitive leadership concepts and practices – to help leaders create the specific conditions needed to accelerate their progress and achieve increasingly greater leadership traction and professional (and personal) success.
If you think a brief conversation about your leadership development needs – or those of others in your organization – could be useful, call or connect to coordinate calendars.