18 Areas of Leadership
A list of 18 areas of Leadership
Leadership is any action that encourages positive behaviour in others in the service of a shared goal.
Thinking of leadership like this frames the domain in an accessible way.
With a definition like this you can start to become more of a leader today.
Here are some more specific things to consider.
List
Clarity
Clear communication is the cornerstone of leadership. Getting groups on the same page on any given thing is important. Ambiguity causes problems. Communication must always be tailored to audience and function but in all cases simplicity and clarity are key. If something is important then it should be explicit.
Vision
You need to be looking in to the future over different time frames to establish ambitious goals. You need to articulate the changes that you want to see and communicate that clearly. You will want to get people on board by painting an appealing picture and being persuasive whilst staying in-touch by truly understanding the current state of things and how transformations can occur.
Change Agency
No matter your level in the hierarchy or the type of change you are making it takes great skill, perseverance and patience to see changes through. When transitioning from one state to another it’s important to minimize the time spent in flux in the middle from a macro and micro perspective. It is better to make fewer changes and ensure they are fully implemented. This requires diligent work and good communication techniques. If you need to remain in an interim state then this also requires clear communication. A common problem is kicking off many initiatives that can not be completed for a variety of reasons. Then people get confused as they don’t know whether to do things the old way, the new way or both.
Ship Steering
Can you remain aware and perceptive and nudge things in the right direction consistently. By the time things have gone south or turned sour it is too late and healing takes a lot of energy. It is better to be on the front foot and be proactive instead of reactive. Can you anticipate problems and put countermeasures in place before they are realised?
Mending
If you are in a situation that has undoubtedly gone south then what can you do to mend and heal?
Systems
Systems thinking is to step back and look at problems critically from an end-to-end perspective. Look at workflows in the context of the whole system. In doing so you will identify bottlenecks. Solve for the bottlenecks and you will have improved the system in a meaningful way.
You need to think about how to create systems to enable people to consistently achieve without person-dependency. Technical systems and process design are equally important. Constantly ask “Is this moving towards the goal? Is this efficient?”. Feedback loops and continual improvement should always be a priority feature.
Empower Others
Too frequently the abilities and potential of teams is left deeply unutilised. We need to create frameworks and systems which enable people to have agency to decide how to work and find solutions. Can people just do whatever they want all of the time? No. But there a sweet spot between chaos and order we should be shooting for.
Problems not solutions.
Where possible delegate problems not solutions. If it’s not clear what to do let people go away and solve problems and then bring options back to the group.
Let others take the lead.
No matter our position it is important to understand that we constantly play different roles and wear different hats. Keep check of what hat you should be wearing in any given situation.
Help Others
Reach out and take opportunities to help people if you know they are doing something unintuitive or difficult. Especially if they are new or inexperienced.
You want to teach people to fish. You want to help other people become better but it’s also a matter of efficiency. You need to utilise techniques to teach individuals and groups.
Ask for Help
Remember that not knowing how to do something is ok at all levels of seniority and asking for help is always the correct action.
Avoid the following anti-patterns:
- Never asking for help. This is simply wasteful.
- Asking for help immediately. Treat others time with respect. You need to do what is in your power before reaching out. Do your due diligence, do the reading and try things. Then when you reach out explain your thoughts and what you’ve already tried and people will be more than happy to show you where you’re off.
Be Wrong Well
We are wrong often. We should hold positions based on evidence and experience. For any position the positives and trade offs should be made explicit. Changes to positions based on new information should be swift and no big deal. Can you do this? Can you create an environment that does this? Getting emotionally tied to positions is something to avoid.
Ownership
It is important to become more invested in some of your endeavours and become a custodian not just a contributor. You need skin in the game. You need to earn decision making authority for significant areas of projects and use this to protect and enhance quality. Define and execute roadmaps that improve outcomes in the future.
Decision Making
As you have more experience and take on more responsibility you will need to be opinionated. Being opinionated can have negative connotations but it really is necessary. You need to have practical and pragmatic views on how things can operate to be successful.
Design by committee is awful. Successful work requires coherence. All of the pieces need to slot together and not every little thing can be up for debate. The key is to be transparent on how decisions are being made.
Be open to change your mind and don’t be opinionated on areas where you have little knowledge. It’s good to say you don’t know regardless of your seniority. Research subjects and evaluate proposals based on their merit. Fall back on your base knowledge. Ask good questions to learn and trust people.
Servant Leader
To be a servant leader is to truly want what’s best for the team. The objective should be to get the best out of the team in the long term and that may mean some personal sacrifices.
This could mean completing boring but necessary work like administration, organising and attending meetings to gain clear understanding on a subject or chasing people around for information.
This could mean filling in for a role outside of your normal comfort zone to help out.
This could be sticking your neck out a bit to higher ups because an important problem is going unnoticed.
This could be performing other awkward or uncomfortable work like talking to be people one on one to try to resolve problems or in the worst case moving people out if they aren’t able to help the team.
You should never see this as actually getting in the way of your own development. The more senior you are the more you should be getting evaluated for impact. This type of conscious action clearly shows your values are aligned with what is most important.
Attitude
The way you interact with others and your mental health more broadly is a huge topic which has great impact on everything you might do. There is perhaps nothing more important than working to get this right.
Try to use positive emotions and minimise negative ones. Positivity effects others positively and the opposite is also true. It is cliché but problems need to be seen as opportunities. Focus your energy on being calm and not erratic. Don’t be too reactive. If something irks you go away and sleep on it.
Praise & Reward
Often the default position is that good work is expected and it invokes no reaction whereas things going wrong will invoke an outsized negative reaction. To display leadership you need to fight against this. Consistently celebrate small wins. Praise and reward good work and positive actions publicly and privately. Calmly use negative events as opportunities for groups to reflect and grow via improvement processes.
People Advocacy
We need to recognise that Humans are the most important element of the systems that we build. Nothing works without them. Organisations need to serve their key stakeholders — their workers. Take every opportunity you can to to create the best environments possible.
Increase compensation, safety, flexibility, support, agency, empowerment, opportunity, learning, fun.
Decrease confusion, stress, pressure, unreasonable expectations / workload / boundaries.
Quality Advocacy
A leader has to consistently advocate for what is right not what is easy or convenient which is to just say yes. You need to protect things by focussing on the medium to long term. Go slow to go fast.
Exemplar Behaviour
Doing consistently high quality work can impress others and earn their respect which will make them more susceptible to your advice.
It’s important to ensure that you can be seen to adhere to any type of advice or policies that you are setting out. Eating your own dog food. By doing this you can also stay in touch with whether what you are advising makes sense. A common and easy way to lose people is hypocrisy — for thee and not for me.
Finally, if you want to seen as a leader then you need to be doing all of the positive things on this list whilst minimising the amount of times where you exhibit the opposite behaviour.
