Getting to Clarity: Creating MORE Success With Less Sacrifice

Mastering Leadership Presence: Avoiding Common Pitfalls for New Leaders

Duration:: 14m
Broadcast on:: 09 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Can you imagine unlocking the secret to earning your team's respect and driving them toward success effortlessly? Welcome to another enlightening episode of the Getting to Clarity podcast with your host, Debbie Peterson, where we unravel the mysteries of effective leadership presence. This episode promises to equip you with actionable insights to project confidence, establish authority, and maintain authenticity. Debbie sheds light on the importance of leadership presence for new leaders and those managing people, emphasizing its role in achieving both personal and organizational goals.

Discover the common pitfalls that new leaders face, such as inconsistency, over or underconfidence, lack of transparency, ignoring team input, and rigidity. Debbie explains how these missteps can diminish your influence and erode trust within your team. Tune in for practical tips to sidestep these errors and strengthen your leadership presence, ensuring you lead with clarity, credibility, and confidence. Whether you're stepping into a leadership role for the first time or looking to refine your skills, this episode is a treasure trove of wisdom to help you become a more effective and respected leader.

Hey, hello and welcome back. I am Debbie Peterson of Getting to Clarity. And this is another episode of the Getting to Clarity podcast. So this is the place if you are new to leadership supervision, managing people that you come to get the tips, tools and techniques that you need to create more of an impact in your leadership and less of a sacrifice in your life while you pursue what it is that you want. So today we are talking about leadership presence. And there's a lot of factors to this. But today we are discussing the common missteps that people make when they step into leadership. So stay tuned. Welcome to the Getting to Clarity podcast. The place where busy leaders discover how to create more success in their leadership journey with less sacrifice in their life. Here's your host, Debbie Peterson of Getting to Clarity. Alright, we always start with the why. Why should leadership presence even matter? Why is it even important to you? Well, this is about you creating respect and influence in working with others. And especially in supervision, in managing people, in leadership, there are goals that you are trying to achieve while you are managing and leading people at the same time. And without leadership presence, you really can't do much in either direction, the goal achieving and the managing and leading. So your leadership presence is a way that you connect with people. And it allows you to build credibility. It allows you to be more confident and appear more confident to the people that you work with and for. And it allows you to establish yourself as an effective and capable leader. It creates that visibility that people see you in that light. It is also how you start building the trust and earning more trust and respect with the rest of your colleagues. So what is it exactly? What is leadership presence and what trips us up? So leadership presence is the ability to project confidence, authority and authenticity. Those three, confidence, authority and authenticity in your interactions with other people. It involves being able to communicate effectively. It is your ability to be emotionally intelligent, to be able to demonstrate that. And it is about you being able to have strong decision making skills that you don't waver or waffle. But many leaders struggle with common missteps that can undermine leadership presence, undermine your leadership overall. So let's talk about what some of those are, at least the big ones in my book. So sometimes people noodle leadership, they undermine themselves or sabotage themselves because they're inconsistent. So the first one is inconsistency in actions. They say one thing, but then they do another. So for instance, they're emphasizing teamwork and collaboration, but yet everything they do they have to do on their own. They don't delegate. Next would be overconfidence or underconfidence. So there's always two sides to the coin. So maybe it's overestimating your abilities that can come off as arrogance or underestimating your abilities can make people unsure about you. You know, if you don't trust yourself, then why should they trust you? The third one would be lack of transparency, not being open or honest with your team. Keep playing things really close to the vest, you know, thinking that you need to have all the facts before you can say anything. A lot of times people can tune in on that. They know something is going on. They know something's not being said and then they get mistrustful and then they disengage, which is the opposite of what you want. The fourth one would be ignoring team input, not valuing or considering the feedback or the ideas of your team. That can be really, you know, unmotivating, demotivating. And it would cause people to say, well, why should I bother to contribute? So, you know, that fostering innovation kind of goes by the wayside because if they contribute an idea, it's just brushed off. The last, the sixth would be the inability to adapt, meaning that you are sticking rigidly. They are cast in concrete, whatever plans you have, despite changing circumstances. And that can make you seem really out of touch and resistant to new ideas, taking different action, making improvements, the whole gamut. So who gets caught up in this? These missteps. Well, pretty much everyone has the potential to. Leaders at all levels of an organization can fall victim to these missteps. I know in my corporate career, there was a very blatant case of this with a new CFO. So at the upper most executive level of the organization, I just couldn't believe it with my own eyes. And you know, it's not that he was a bad person, just coming into a new circumstance and regardless of his expertise and his experience, it came off the wrong way. So whether you're a seasoned executive or a new manager, it's important to be aware of these pitfalls and then make sure that you are being proactive to avoid them. So how do you avoid them? How can you take the right action to improve? So improving your leadership presence means intentional actions and self-awareness. You have to be aware of these pitfalls to make sure that you weren't falling into them. So here are some concrete steps along with examples to help you out and a practical exercise that should get you going on this. Now as far as the first step, it's always reflection. Reflect on your action. So for instance, if you emphasize the importance of teamwork but you handle projects alone because you believe that you can do it faster, this inconsistency can fuse your team and undermine your message about working together as a team. So to address this, you want to set time aside at the end of the week for a debrief of your actions and decisions. Okay, look back on the week. Are you moving forward toward the kind of leader that you aspire to be or did the actions of the past week keep you from moving away from it? Now if you feel you're in a good space and things are humming along, then you know, maybe this is something that you do every so often but if you feel that you are struggling, this is definitely something that you want to incorporate. If you are newly promoted and it's just, it's not going the way that you envisioned and this is something that you definitely want to take the time to do to reflect on your actions. So maybe it is a leadership journal that you keep. That can be really helpful because the lessons that you learn, then you don't lose. You keep those lessons and each day you write down one action that you took that was aligned with your values and the vision of your leadership and then maybe there was one that didn't. And by pulling this information out of your head and putting it down on a piece of paper, it makes it more valuable. You remember it more. It has more of an impact. Then you can reflect on what you would like to do differently the next time. So this is just feedback. It's new information, but you get to decide what you do differently the next time. And that is an impactful approach. Second, you want to seek feedback regularly from your team and from your colleagues. So if you are new to leadership or if you've been in a leadership role or a manager of your role and maybe you find yourself hitting some bumps on a road, then seek feedback. So imagine thinking that you are approachable, but your team finds you intimidating because you often look intimidating. And maybe that's just you being preoccupied or thinking or being serious. But your physiology is part of your communication as well. So for you, it's creating an environment where they feel safe, that they can share information, they can be honest. That's really important. And if your physiology is part of it, then you got to pay attention to that too. So maybe you do a 360 degree feedback exercise by asking your team members, maybe it's your colleagues and your supervisors to provide anonymous feedback on your leadership style and be prepared for the feedback. It is meant to help you. You don't take it personally or at least if you take it personally, you put a window on it and it doesn't stay with you because that doesn't do you any good. So you can use an online survey or any sort of other feedback mechanism. And then your job is to identify the common themes. And then this is feedback. This is good information. What is it that you are going to plan to do to address any of these themes that may be a concern? Number three, communicate transparently. Now maybe you've decided on a new direction for your team. Okay? Something came down from the top. You're in the middle. There's a new direction, but you have not explained the reasons behind the new actions. People know that something is going on and if they don't know the reason, they'll create one. Nature abhors a vacuum and so does your team. So you have to communicate transparently because this just builds or breeds confusion and resistance. So share the rationale behind decisions and keep your team as informed as you can, knowing that sometimes there are things that you can't share, but as informed as you can about changes and developments. Maybe at your next team meeting, you spend a couple of minutes discussing a recent decision. Maybe you explain the reasons behind it. Maybe you explain the outcomes that you're looking for and how it aligns with the team's goals and then encourage their questions and provide honest answers. All right. So next, number four, involve your team in the decision making process. You might be working on a project, some sort of plan that could benefit from your team's expertise. So use them because proceeding without consulting them might result in missing valuable information. You could lose an opportunity to create team buy-in. So actively seek and consider your team's input when making decisions. So before you finalize your next project plan, hold a brainstorming session. Just that simple and invite team members to contribute, to share their ideas and perspectives and then incorporate their feedback where you can into the final plan. I mean, imagine how that's going to make them feel and then acknowledge them for their contributions. That is creating just a healthy, vibrant, collaborative workplace, which is some simple steps. Okay. Tip number five, less, but not least, stay adaptable. You know, if you're a creature of habit, and believe me, I see you because I tend to be you and you've always followed, you know, a specific routine, a specific strategy, but things have changed. Maybe the market has changed or the direction for your organization has changed, then you being able to suggest a different approach might be more effective. Sticking to the old plan could hurt your team's performance, open up be a little more innovative in your thinking and be open to new information, willing to change your approach, get feedback from your team whenever necessary. You know, maybe you look at a recent change in your industry or organization and you challenge yourself because it starts with you with your team, you challenge yourself to come up with three different ways to respond to this change. You know, get yourself out of your box and then discuss these options with your team and then choose the most effective strategy. So now, what will you do next? Because all of this information that's being shared is nothing unless you do something with it. So now that you have a better understanding of the importance of your leadership presence and some of the common missteps and some of the ways that you can avoid those missteps, how are you going to get into action? What will you do? So maybe you create a development plan and this is a way forward to enhancing your leadership skills, maybe you seek out opportunities to practice and refine your abilities. You seek feedback from others to grow as a leader and then by taking next steps towards improving your presence, you can position yourself for a much greater role, much greater success and make a positive impact on your team and your organization. So until the next time, here is wishing you all the clarity that you deserve to make the impact that you desire. Take care. Be good to yourself and bye bye for now. I'm Debbie Peterson of Getting to Clarity and if you'd like to learn more about my leadership, presence, keynotes and consulting, please visit www.wpetersonspeaks.com. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Getting to Clarity Podcast with Debbie Peterson. If you enjoyed this show, please rate and recommend it on iTunes or wherever you enjoy your podcast. To learn more about how you can bring Debbie and her transformational clarity leadership strategies to your organization, visit debbypetersonspeaks.com [MUSIC]