What Leadership means to me.

I have been a ‘leader’ in many of my previous roles, often not joining the business as a leader and then being promoted into the role. Over my time leading teams and people, locally and globally I’ve learnt a lot and will undoubtedly continue to learn, evolve and be inspired!

I’ve made mistakes along the way, learnt from them, had great success and been lucky enough to ‘lead’ amazing team members. I love leadership, I love help people get to where they need to be in their careers, guiding them, working with them and learning with them.

This post isn’t a guide to follow and it’s most certainly not an exhaustive list. It’s intention is simply to inspire you and to help you in your journey. I hope it does that. If you think this would be useful for others, please ‘like’ and share it. I welcome your feedback whether you find this helpful or not.

1. Leadership is not management.
Management is about control it’s about telling people what to do and getting them to do it. If you want to be a manager then this post is not for you. Leadership however is about setting a vision, a direction and coaching and empowering your team to work together to make it happen. A [good] leader aims to build autonomous, high performing teams that make decisions themselves, take ownership, are effective communicators who challenge and hold each accountable.

Leadership is about influence. Great leaders inspire. Poor leaders manage ;)

2. Be Introspective
Being a great leader isn’t about reading and liking Leadership First posts on LinkedIn. It’s also not about simply reading the recommended books and doing what they say. Being a great leader is about being introspective, constantly looking to improve and most importantly treating people like humans! Read and be inspired but do not be tempted to constantly change what you’re doing based on the last thing you read. This creates uncertainty and indicates a lack of faith in your own abilities. Read and ruminate, learn and improve but do it in small steps and do it for the right reasons.

In our time working we’ve all come across bad leaders and hopefully we’ve all come across great leaders. Learn from both. 😑

You may wonder what you can learn from someone that you may have not enjoyed working with, that didn’t garner your respect or perhaps made you want to quit your job. You can learn just as much from them as from the good leader. What was it that they did that made it hard for you to do your job? Why did they do this? What would you have done differently? How can you do better than them?

Complete a SWOT analysis on yourself. What are you really good at? What are your areas of weaknesses? Where do you want to be in 5 or 10 years and how are you going to get there? Ask those around you to give you feedback about what you’re doing well and where you can improve. Consider the feedback and what you will do about it.

Who are the leaders that inspire you and why? What can you learn from them?

Since you asked… Bob Iger (CEO of Disney) and [Sir] Nick Varney (former CEO of Merlin Entertainments). I wholeheartedly can recommend Bob’s book The Ride of a Lifetime. It’s exceptionally inspiring, talks about his journey from being a runner (TV, not track) through to becoming CEO and rather fittingly talks about leading with empathy.

3. Humans are not Resources.
People aren’t resources. They are humans with lives, with problems and families. Once you forget people are individual you lose your ability to empathise and connect with them and indeed forget that they all bring a different skillset. Consider how you wish to be treated as a customer in a restaurant or shop. You want to feel like you matter. It’s the same for your team.

A resource can be replaced. A pencil. A printer. A computer. All of these are replaceable. Poor ‘leaders’ believe that you can simply replace a developer with another developer of the same skillset, backend, frontend, mobile. On the surface this is true and equally it could be true to say that you may find a more ‘talented’ individual. What you will not find however is someone that has the wealth of domain knowledge that your leaver has. The relationships that have built within the business, customers and partners is immeasurable.

Roles are replaceable. People are not. What happens when people leave? They get new roles. They share their great news. They pull in their ex-colleagues. It’s a downhill slope. It costs more to replace a person that it does to invest in them.

See your team as people. You generally don’t want to delve too deeply into their personal lives but find out about them, their interests, family, their weekend. If their child or parent is sick, take the time to follow up to find out if there’s been an improvement and indeed how you can support them. Build strong relationships and care.

A couple of quick caveats here. This has to be pure. Do not do this simply because you read it here or in a leadership book. Do it because you want to do it otherwise it will come across as contrived and that is far worse. Everything you do should feel natural to be successful. It has to be right for you. Equally, not everyone within your team will want to open up and that is fine. That is their choice and should be respected. Find what works and learn how to connect.

4. Each person is unique
No surprises here but, often forgotten about. People want to feel valued. They want to get feedback. What one person defines as value isn’t necessarily the same as what matters to another. For some, value is about money, for other it’s about feedback. Some people may appreciate a ‘thank you’ much more than a pay rise. Some will prefer a public shout out rather than a private email. Some will hate the limelight and some absolutely love it. You, as a leader need to understand how to get the best out of each person and how to make them feel valued. Communication equally is a difficult balance. Some want updates as a DM, others want an email, and perhaps another wants a newsletter on a Friday afternoon! There is no one size fits all and in some cases you will need to use multiple methods (especially if it’s critical). Learn and evolve!

5. Trust your team
Remember that leaders inspire, coach and guide. That being the case give your team whatever they need to succeed, provide clear direction and support and trust them to do what they do best. If they do well, ensure that you give them that feedback. Positive reinforcement is important and immensely valuable. Regularly give feedback and as close to the time of the event as possible. Do it in whatever format is appropriate for the team member (each person is unique, remember??). If things don’t go according to plan, talk it through with them and provide them with feedback to help and guide them explaining clearly why. Again, don’t leave this for too long after the incident that triggers the need for the conversation. Provide your team with support and time as needed but do not micromanage. Equally, don’t throw them into the ocean and hope that they will learn to swim! Support, guide and slowly back off.

6. Don’t put a fox in the chicken coop
Recruitment is critical. You want to build a team that works together, that challenges but does not work against each other. This being the case, cultural fit is extremely important. If you add someone to the team that causes friction, that looks to climb a ladder at the expense of others and that is not a team player… you’ve just put a fox in the chicken coop. The fox will destroy from within and wreck your culture. Look to recruit people that fit with the team you’ve built, that adds a new dynamic and will enhance your team but absolutely ensure that they are the right fit. You may make a mistake in recruiting and, if you do, deal with it, learn from it, improve but do not ignore it.

7. Manage your time and have structure.
As a leader a lot of people will want your time and the worst thing you can do is to let ad-hoc meetings take over your calendar. Add structure to your calendar and part of that structure is to book out time to focus on your targets. For example, fix a time for one to ones each day and book these in. Plan these for a fixed time each day/week/month and stick with it. If you find yourself being asked to have meetings with particular people, consider adding a weekly meeting to provide a fixed point where you can talk.

Where your meetings are with developers do your best to plan these meetings around other things. What I mean by this is, first thing, before/after lunch. The reason for this is to minimise distracting and disruption. If your team are in start-stop mode they won’t be able to achieve their full potential and that is bad for the developer and thus the business. Alongside this, don’t go to meetings in which you won’t add value, question meetings that have no agenda (and ensure yours do) and help to reduce meetings for others.

8. Lead with Empathy
If you are broadly in agreement with what you’ve been reading here then you are well on your pathway to being an empathetic leader. This style of leadership is about connecting with your team, understanding their perspective and being supportive of them. Make the time to listen, be there for them and work out what you can do to help them achieve their goals. If things go wrong, support and help them and others to learn from mistakes such that they are not repeated. Identify ‘how’ a mistake was possible rather than berating for it occurring. Encourage a collaborative and inclusive atmosphere where psychological safety is embraced. Help the team to work as one and to actively resolve conflicts themselves.

9. Be Yourself
Keep learning and adapting. There are many different leadership styles and you have to find out what works for you, for the business and domain in which you work and for the people you work with.

Your style of leadership may not work for a particular company or industry. This doesn’t mean they are wrong and that you are wrong, it just means that the way you want to work isn’t aligned with that of your business. This happens. It’s natural. It’s evolution.

It’s important for you to find the job/company that works for you rather than finding that you have to adapt too much. You need to be true to yourself to be successful. If you find yourself having to adapt too heavily to please those above you, you will find that you are constantly second guessing yourself rather than doing your job. You will find yourself spending too much time trying to figure out what others expect from you rather than enjoying leadership. This simply means that you are being ‘managed’ rather than led, i.e. your leader is a manager if they expect you to do what they’d do and they are not trusting you to be successful.

In short, with such a ‘manager’ you will never be successful unless you want to be them. If you stick with this path, it will end badly. There’s a big wide world out there, find a company whose values and leadership style fits with yours. That symbiotic relationship will be much more fruitful.

10. Be Curious, Not Judgemental
If you’re familiar with Ted (Lasso .. not Talks) you will remember how he says this to Rupert. The bad leader makes assumptions and attacks. The good leader asks questions.

If you have a good performer in your team whose productivity has fallen, don’t scold and punish them, approach from a curious perspective to find out what’s changed. Maybe they are experiencing problems in their personal life, maybe they’re not being challenged or have lost motivation for another reason. Take the time to talk to them and understand before making a judgement. Then, see how you can help them to get back to where they were. They will value this so much more than a harsh rebuke.

In some cases there will need to be honest feedback and perhaps a performance improvement plan but, that should never be your first approach and you’ll find that it’s rare that you get to that stage. Poor leaders are all too quick to jump to performance management, great leaders look to support, help and guide people back to where they want to be.

You’ve invested time into people, losing them should not be your aim. It is not weak to support, that in fact is the harder option. If that doesn’t work however, then be prepared to have an honest conversation. People are all too often scared to give courageous feedback but, prepare, do it right and the rewards are immeasurable.

That’s a wrap
If you got here… thank you for reading this. I hope you’ve found it helpful. These are all part of the way that I work. It feels natural to me and has over time evolved for me. It may not be right for you and ultimately you need to forge your path with what is right for you and your team. You can learn as much from a junior as you can from the CEO. Great leaders inspire, trust and value their team. You can learn as much from a bad leader as you can from a great one. Be humble, be kind, be genuine, be true to yourself, love what you do and do it because you love it.