WHAT IS YOUR BUSINESS? – 6 Successful Leadership Qualities at WorkWhen you strive to do well in your job you might think “Which factors play a role in my success as a team leader? My teammates? My boss? My colleagues? Does HR play a role? What about fate, destiny, and luck? An engineering degree, a bachelor, or a master’s degree from a prestigious business school?”
1. Learning by doing
The answer is none of them. Learning by doing will. And in the process of understanding this you shall never forget that your job does not end with a promotion, it begins with a promotion.
Fate, destiny and luck are factors that you cannot influence – thus they are not your business. Your boss is as he or she is and so are your teammates and colleagues. They have their own business which is not yours. HR is not your business. You can seek advice from an engineering or business university, but their answers are biased.
Learning by doing is your business. However, there is something restless within you that drives you forward. What is it? Set up a motive for your drive – this will give you clarity and a direction for your actions. Learning, striving, and expanding your life is purely your making and nobody elses. Take the lead.
2. Efforts and Energy
There are a few things that are in your hands for example your efforts and your energy. Do not allocate efforts and energy at things that are not your business.
Your business is effort and energy. Your efforts must be incisive and spring from clarity and direction, and your energy level must energize others. Your efforts and energy must be focused and calibrated. Hard work alone is not going to get you anywhere. If you do not do the right things, the right things will not happen to you.
Focus on what is the right thing to do and get it done. Direct your efforts and energy one hundred percent in one direction. Set an example, let your team gain new insight through their actions and finally follow up.
3. Intellect and Attitude
The faculty of reasoning and understanding is objectively processed through your intellect. This subsequently builds your character and shapes your attitude. Consequently, intellectual acuity and your attitude is your business.
If you are dissatisfied, you cannot blame anyone but yourself. Your intellect is obviously not working with 100 % efficiency in your favour. Try again; seek, explore, experiment, explain, gain new insight, learn from the process adapt and align. Tirelessly repeat this and it will make you very visible. Continue for years if necessary, always with an attitude of humble dissatisfaction, “I can do better.”
4. Integrity
Integrity is the degree to which you are able to; develop your own and other’s opinions, attitudes, and behaviors in an unfamiliar situation towards clarity and act accordingly. To build up trustworthiness around you requires a high degree of integrity.
If you are not able to deliver clarity, but complicate things instead, then people will perceive your integrity as low. They will therefore hesitate to build a trustworthy relationship to you. Integrity is definitely your business.
5. Inclusiveness
Relationship responsibility inside and outside your team will always be essential for progress. Consequently, clear communication is vital when you stimulate people and create a response to growth.
What you get as an outcome is depends on what you give as input; if you are not the best member of your team, your team can hardly be the best team in the organization. You will try to inspire your team, your peer team, and your boss, but you will fail. The best way to lead anyone is with behavior that makes them wish to be like you.
Inclusiveness means that you include everything and everyone everywhere in your sphere. Therefore you must collaborate with and treat people with respect. Moreover, you don’t want to treat yourself badly as this has no upside for anyone. Inclusiveness is your business.
6. Deliver what you promise + 20%
As a leader, you show the way, and you are never satisfied “The next team results delivered will be the best” is your attitude. You are the creator of your unique leadership style, which consequently frames the outcome delivered by your team. Moreover, your budget promises are always the minimum, and never the maximum. Whatever you agree with your Boss, when leaving that meeting, you promise yourself and decide to deliver 20% more. This shall trigger your motive for action, leading your people towards the +20% target.
This process illustrates how you with full awareness and consciousness can create a “Team Business Model” that works for you when leading a growing team, which is absolutely your business.
The right thing
Unless you do the right things, the right things will not happen to you. Great leaders are shaped by overcoming insurmountable challenges, and more often than not during years. Doing the right thing demands that you have a clear motive and take instructions from your consciousness. Never take instructions from impulsive emotions triggered by other people’s shortcomings. Their business, not yours. At this point progress will be effortless, in spite of significant challenges, and it will deliver limitless results.
The right kind and the correct dose of efforts, energy, intellectual acuity, attitude, integrity, responsive inclusiveness and always overdelivering are all critical to our success. Lucky you, all these factors are things you have in your hands.
I wish for you to become a leader with a; “Strong foundation, built of stones that fit, and with wings to fly high.”
Siegfried W Andersen
Founder – CEO
Italy, August 19th, 2019