Power of a Positive Leader
Picture an impactful leader in your life.
What qualities made them a good leader? Does trust, honesty, openness, and good communication come to mind? How do you become a leader worth following?
You start with taking the time to get to know yourself so you can lead yourself. This comes in three parts: nature, nurture, and choice. Nature is your personality and natural tendencies. We are either extroverted or introverted, thinkers or feelers, and judgers or perceivers. Nurture is how we were raised. Parenting, mentors, faith, education, and socio-economic environment are all factors in nurture. These factors shape your life and perspective. Choice is given to all of us. The choices we make help us supersede nature and nurture. Regardless of our nature and nurture, good or bad, we have the freedom to choose how to act. A good place to start is to have humble confidence.
What is humble confidence?
Let’s break down the phrase so we can better understand…
Humble is defined as considering others as more important than yourself and being willing to give/serve for the benefit of the team. Benefits of being a humble leader are:
- You increase the performance of others. (Peterson, Galvien, & Lange 2012)
- You gain team members trust and build relationships. (Liden et al., 2008)
- You increase creativity of people you are working with. (Liden, Way, Liao, & Meuser, 2014)
- You increase commitment. (LaPoint & Vandenberghe, 2016)
- You increase engagement. (Boersma, Windt, Alkema, 2014)
- You increase job satisfaction and reduce turnover intent. (Mitterer, 2017)
Confidence is defined as a sense of self-respect that comes from accomplishing something and gaining the esteem of others. Consider these equation phrases:
- Humility without confidence equals insecurity.
- Confidence without humility equals arrogance.
Humble confidence requires balance but we have only just begun to skim the surface of a positive leader. Now that you know how to manage yourself, let’s pivot to effective feedback.
The best leaders ask for and receive feedback from others, often. Rather than being afraid of feedback, they are comfortable receiving information about their behavior from their bosses, colleagues, and employees. The ability to give and receive feedback is one of the most important leadership skills. It is also a key driver of leadership effectiveness, as shown in a 2013 study by Forbes.
Feedback is NOT advice or evaluation. It IS information about how we are doing in our efforts to reach a goal.
- Fair and accurate feedback boosts individual performance by up to 39% – Corporate Leadership Council, Managing for High Performance and Retention, 2005.
- Productivity goes up while employee turnover rates go down – by as much as 59%!
- Annual Performance Review cultures that switched to regular feedback cultures saw 30% drop in employee resignations.
Elements of effective feedback are to care personally and challenge directly. According to Kim Scott, co-founder of Candor, Inc, RADICAL CANDOR and TRUST are required as well. Feedback should be:
- Humble
- Accurate
- Practical
- Private
You might be wondering that while all of this sounds great, how and why should you put your efforts into it? Let’s start by answering the ‘why’. Toxic work environments promote negative thinking. Friction increases while productivity declines. Research shows that the after-effects of employees who had a negative encounter with their leader or co-worker were:
- 48% intentionally decreased their work effort.
- 80% lost time worrying about the incident.
- 63% lost time avoiding the offender.
- 78% said their commitment to the organization declined.
- 25% admitted to taking their frustration out on customers.
So how do you begin?
Clear Leader Group will help you! We use talent optimization to get results. We do this through a four-part discipline that aligns your people strategy with your business strategy. These scientifically-validated tools help businesses DESIGN the job role, HIRE the right people, INSPIRE their teams so they stay engaged, and DIAGNOSE culture problems. When people do what they are designed to do they thrive at work and get results. We help teams achieve:
Better ME + Better YOU = Better US!
Contact us today to begin your journey towards a positive leader and get results!
