Your leadership style is unique. Each and every one of us is an individual. We each have different interests, traits, levels of ability and talents that are unique to us. While we may find that we are compatible with several other individuals, no one is exactly like any other person. We each have our experiences, our own way of seeing the world, and of doing things, and getting things done.
Why it’s Important for Leaders to Identify and Embrace their True Style
This sense of self, our mode of being, influences and affects everything that we do, especially when it comes to the way that we lead ourselves and others. Before we can be honest and genuine with others, we first must be honest with ourselves and strive for authenticity. We must embrace our style.
Every leader has their own unique leadership style, and the key to being an effective and successful leader is learning how to identify, sharpen and polish it.
Developing Your Leadership Style is a Journey of Self-Discovery, Change and Risk
Building and developing your style of leadership is not something that is accomplished easily or overnight. It really is an adventure, which requires you to be fully open and honest with yourself.
To be a successful leader, you must be willing to let go of your old ways of doing things and be willing to fully embrace change. You must hold nothing back and be ready to risk everything, in the pursuit of improving yourself and your performance.
Shining a Spotlight on Your Leadership Style
The following 3 steps will help you get started on your journey to embracing your most genuine, authentic and effective self. As you embrace and develop your true leadership style, you will find that you become more confident.
As you gain confidence, you become more bold, and decisive, and increase your ability to motivate and inspire yourself and others. The increase in your performance and results is simply the natural result of increasing your confidence.
- Focus on Your Strengths
Do you know what it is that you do really well? What are you great at? What do you enjoy? What is your special talent? Many times, very talented people end up producing mediocre results when given the opportunity to lead. Why? Simply because they get bogged down with all the things they aren’t good at. Instead, they should be focusing on that one specific thing that they do well.
No one will ever be great at every single thing, but if you can focus on what you are really good at, you have the potential to set yourself apart. Focus on your natural strengths and ways to develop and improve the areas where you already naturally excel.
- Learn to Let Go
A critical component of developing your personal leadership style is learning to let go. Learn to let go of the things that you don’t do well. Practice delegating these tasks to your team and increasing their level of responsibility.
Not only will you free up valuable time that you can spend leading in areas where being hands on will actually make a difference; you will increase the trust and respect between yourself and the members of your team.
By providing your team more responsibility, you also provide them with opportunities to grow. This increases their performance while also increasing your ability to motivate and inspire them. All of which increases your effectiveness and performance.
- Seek Feedback and Accept Guidance
Don’t be afraid to seek feedback from your team about what steps you can take that will help you to better serve them. Leadership truly is about serving others and helping to lead others to be able to perform their best.
In addition to feedback from your team, you can also ask for feedback from a trusted peer or colleague. At some point in their careers, many leaders find that they truly need a coach or mentor to help them gain the insight that they need to increase their performance.
Finding a coach or mentor who has been in “the trenches” or through similar experiences, is truly beneficial because you can learn from them. You can discover what has, and has not worked in the past. You can learn from their experiences as well as seek their advice and input as you test out your plans and ideas before sharing them with others.
It’s not always easy for leaders to be able to give up control and let go, to narrow their focus and accept advice, but each is a key step on the path to identifying and developing their personal leadership style.
What about you? Do you have your style all figured out, or do you need some assistance? Whether you’ve been recently promoted or you just need to step up your game in order to meet new performance objectives, we can help. Get in touch today and ask about our executive coaching and mentoring programs.
