Can Anyone Lead?

If you can do the work well, you can lead other people to do it. Right?  Wrong. “Occupying a leadership position is not the same thing as leading,” says executive coach and management professor Monique Valcour. “To lead, you must be able to connect, motivate, and inspire a sense of ownership of shared objectives.”
 
There is no magic bullet or infallible management tool to ensure good leadership. Instead, Valcour advises creating practices to increase leadership proficiency using the following steps:

• Start with a problem you’d like to solve or a future result you’d like to achieve. What outcome would make a meaningful difference for you and your team?
• Articulate why it’s important to you now. Getting clear on your purpose and motivation increases creativity and persistence.
• Seek quality information to base your approach on. Check in with your coach or mentor, and search for relevant books, articles and studies
• Identify measures of success. How will you know if you're making progress?
• Ground yourself with an intention. Place a sticky note with this intention on your computer where you’ll see it first thing each morning—and your team will see it too.
• Choose behaviors to implement. For example, serve as a role model, stimulate thinking with questions, practice empathy, and praise proactive behavior.
• Seek feedback and celebrate progress.
  
  

“The developmental journey is fascinating and fulfilling if you embrace it,” says Valcour “You don’t have to wait to be trained; you can design leadership development practices any time you want.”

What are you doing to promote your own continuous learning as a leader? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

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