By Guest Author Mike Figliuolo, author of One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership.
People follow leaders they trust. Trust is based on predictability. Sharing a clear, compelling leadership philosophy is the best way to become more predictable to your team (to see if your team trusts you, take this simple Trusted Leader Assessment).
Many leadership philosophies are full of buzzwords. That’s not authentic. One Piece of Paper helps leaders articulate their philosophy through personal stories which humanize the leader and lead to real performance changes for the team. Leaders must answer sixteen simple questions and those answers become a compelling, authentic leadership philosophy.
The most important things leaders must understand are:
- Be yourself. Spare your team the corporate-speak and tell your personal story instead. They can spot a phony a mile away.
- Give in to emotion. Articulate your leadership philosophy as stories that have deep emotional meaning for you. The stronger the emotions associated with the story, the more likely you are to change your behavior to be consistent with the lesson the story reminds you of.
- Lead yourself. You have to know where you want to go and define your personal code of conduct before you can expect to lead someone else.
- Lead the thinking. Your job is to set direction, challenge outdated thinking, and define standards. Create reminders that force you to do these things on a regular basis.
- Lead your people. Get dirty. Know their jobs. Know them as individuals – not as a box on an organization chart or a job title. When they know you care about them as a person, they’re much more willing to give you everything they’ve got.
- Lead a balanced life. If you’re burned out, you’re worthless. Set boundaries and stick to them. Let everyone else know what they are. Balance applies to your work too – have enough work you love to do to balance out all the mindless tasks you don’t enjoy.
- Pull it together. Document your reminders of how you want to behave on one piece of paper. Tack it up on your wall. Having that simple reminder of your approach to leadership always within arm’s reach will help you live up to that standard every day.
- Share. Tell people your personal story. Help them understand the experiences that have made you who you are. Sharing will help them understand you better. That understanding builds trust between you and your team.
Mike Figliuolo is the managing director of thoughtLEADERS, LLC – a leadership development firm.
Mike Figliuolo: One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership
David Horsager: The Trust Edge: How Top Leaders Gain Faster Results, Deeper Relationships, and a Stronger Bottom Line
Vanessa Hall: The Truth About Trust in Business: How to Enrich the Bottom Line, Improve Retention, and Build Valuable Relationships for Success