Leadership - a few thoughts
At a recent NCEE Entrepreneurial Leaders module in Oxford www.ncee.org.uk/leadership, I made reference to the work of Prof Rosabeth Moss Kanter from the Harvard Business School- one of my favourite leadership and change gurus to share some thoughts on leadership. The following are a few brief notes on six actions that an entrepreneurial leader (or in fact any kind of leader) can implement to keep projects, change and innovation moving in a positive direction.
1. Show-Up
- Be there- don't be invisible- turn up and put energy into what you are doing.
- Make yourself available - your presence makes a difference.
- Don't hide in your office or behind emails or meeting.
- Get out and about - both within your patch and also outside the university.
- Take control of your diary and prioritise these activities.
- Be mindful of your followers and encourage them and encourage them to do likewise.
2. Speak-Up
- Use the power of your voice and communicate with your team regularly.
- Shape the agenda- be proactive to ensure progress.
- Help people to understand what is going on- interpret and use language that is understandable to a wide range of audiences.
- Be a thought leader - share ideas, don't keep good ideas to yourself.
- Be confident (even if you don't always feel it) and credible- people often see what they expect to see.
- Be the one to identify the problem and start to initiate ideas and actions- this helps to get things moving and keep plans on track.
3. Look-up
- Look at bigger things and consider vision, values and beliefs.
- Know what you stand for and communicate that.
- Be enthusiastic and motivated and able to elevate people's thinking from the day-to day operational ups and downs.
- Avoid getting too bogged down in the details.
- Be mindful of and nurture the talent around you.
- Create opportunities and take opportunities.
4. Team-up
- Work with people.
- Be prepared to empower and delegate to encourage innovation and risk taking.
- Collaborate and develop partnerships.
- Find partners who believe in what you are thinking and doing.
- Embrace the power of the team and always remember the most important word in the leader's vocabulary is “we” and the least important is “I”.
- NETWORKING is only one letter away from NOT WORKING.
5. Never Give Up
- Innovation and change can look like a failure in the middle- but do not give up.
- Projects and ideas hit bumps in the road, change-resisters and critics start sniping and raising all sorts of reasons and objections as to why things won't work and can create all kinds of obstacles.
- Be resilient and determined.
- Communicate endlessly to get buy-in and to get people to commit.
- Find a way around the obstacles- be creative and entrepreneurial.
6. Lift others up
- Recognise and acknowledge others.
- Delegate and empower others wherever possible.
- Let others share the success-they will remember and will support you again in the future.
- Elevate others and enable them to develop and grow from the success.
- Celebrate successes.
Remember these six skills of leadership:
Show-up; Speak-up; Look-up; Team-up; Never give-up and Lift others up