Emerging Leaders

Are you an Emerging Leader? 

Leadership means many different things, but within the scope of a career, it directly relates to your ability to lead or influence others. It’s not exactly about a title or a pay grade, but instead, it’s about your ability to lead in the now. Perhaps you haven’t considered yourself a leader before now, and if that’s the case, I’d love to have a conversation with you further about what it means to step into true leadership. It’s not as scary as you think it is. For those of you who see yourself as a leader, this one is for you. 

Often, emerging leaders find themselves in situations where other peers and sometimes even leaders are coming to them for guidance, knowledge, or even just updates on their department.  While they are knowledgeable and wise, they don’t feel prepared to step into leadership. Many times, companies are not able to successfully prepare them either, as far too often, companies don’t have a proper leadership development program.

So, how can you enhance your leadership skills?

In my opinion, this is a straightforward question that many people attempt to answer by taking leadership classes or certifications to help them be more effective leaders.  However, I don’t believe that learning how to manage effectively makes you a good leader.  In my opinion, good leaders are leaders who invest in, support, and advocate for their teams and peers.  Leaders are people who can get to know someone 1:1 and better understand what inspires that person, and what they need to feel empowered. Then good leaders champion the people around them and the tools and resources they need to be successful.  This takes a careful understanding of people, skillsets, communication, and the work at hand, and that’s where I would advise leaders to start. 

Emotional intelligence and DEI are all the buzzwords now.  The basis of the work behind emotional intelligence and DEI are also, at least in my opinion, the basis of great leadership.  Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are what teams need in order to be successful.  Team members need to appreciate the diversity of their teams, help them equitably, and include everyone with compassion and grace. 

Let’s break down the things to consider and focus on that will most enhance your leadership skills.

Diversity is a Critical Skill for Emerging Leaders

The premise of diversity is that we are all different and unique in our own ways.  The strength of diversity is that these differences and unique perspectives can bring new and innovative approaches to challenges in business.  So when you’re building a team, understanding that our own biases and genetic dispositions make us want to seek out things that are comfortable and familiar to us.  Embracing these different perspectives is one thing, but from a leadership perspective, seeking out diversity in hiring, opinions, and due diligence is incredibly important. 

When you encounter someone who doesn’t seem to think like you do, I encourage you to ask questions – to them and to the vast array that is on the internet.  I recommend researching and better understanding cultures that your people strongly identify with and asking questions to your team members to better understand them personally.   Let your teams know that if they don’t feel comfortable answering a question or would prefer that you just do the research, they can tell you that. 

Emerging Leaders Must Understand Equity 

Equity is not the same as equality.  Equality is about treating everyone equally… but if you dig into the individuals in your life, you’ll find that treating them equally isn’t necessarily fair. Every person is unique, which means the things that they need help with will all be different. If you truly embrace the diversity of each individual, you’ll start to understand that equity is about helping every single person succeed.  It’s about meeting them where they are in their career or life journey and giving them the tools, resources, and support to succeed in their goals.  Only through supporting people in this way will we truly be able to be a leader.  

Here’s an example of equity.  You have two employees.  Both are incredibly smart, have similar economic backgrounds, and have an enormous amount of intrinsic motivation (the internal drive to do things).  However, one of them is more skilled in numerical challenges, they can successfully use Excel to do data analysis in their role and figure out the next best steps.   The other is more skilled in their people skills, so they can rally the rest of the team together to get the information and support they need to figure out the next best steps.   

One of your employees in this example can use more Excel training and the other more emotional intelligence training…  Equality would be giving both of them the same training, even if they didn’t need it.  Equity is about giving your data-strong employees the emotional intelligence training and resources to skill up, and your emotionally intelligent employees the data analysis skills they need to step up.  This is how we meet people where they are and treat them fairly or equitably. 

Emerging Leaders Have to Be Dedicated to Inclusion

Inclusion is also about treating people fairly, especially as a leader.  It’s about team building, development, and ensuring everyone feels like they’re a valuable part of the team.  When you are looking to make changes, or even just share those changes with your teams, including everyone in the discussion and helping them each to understand how and why the changes affect them and benefit them is important.  If you’re holding a team meeting, make sure everyone is there, and those who can’t be there get notes and a chance to ask questions.  Inclusion is about giving every person on your team an opportunity to display their leadership skills, to make mistakes, to grow, and to be part of the conversation. 

That said, inclusion goes a bit deeper. 

I know a lot of our DEI discussion so far, I’ve stressed meeting your teams where they are with their diverse ideas and perceptions, and in the needs that they have to be successful. Inclusion is also asking them what they need to be successful instead of making the assumptions we carry in our bias.  Every single person is different, we have all had different experiences and different opportunities. Assuming that someone needs a specific area of support because of our own biases is harmful to them, our teams, and also to our influence as a leader.  

Inclusion is also about ensuring that everyone is included in events, discussions, and training that are both relevant and fun.  Additionally, teaching your team about bias, and calling out that behavior so that your teams are holding space for people to feel safe to be who they are.  That’s how innovation happens when people feel safe to be who they are.  Inclusion is about including others, no matter our personal biases, and it’s also about ensuring that our employees are doing the same thing.  

How Emerging Leaders can Increase Effectiveness

Effectiveness is a subjective word, but ideally, when it comes to work, it’s about ensuring that you can do what you need to do to get the job done.  When it comes to leadership, effectiveness isn’t just about the work you are doing but also the work that your team is doing.  To understand how to increase effectiveness, you have to understand where your team is right now and how effective they are. This comes from taking an overall comprehensive analysis.  Starting with data, and then moving on to understanding what and how your team is operating.

So, step by step may look like the following:

1. Looking at data – Sales, metrics, quality, revenue, etc. (Reporting is a key component of leadership, and if your company isn’t currently looking at reporting, let’s chat because we can see what type of reporting can help you – book a call here [link])
2. Looking at job descriptions and expectations of your team from a written perspective.
3. Do side-by-side work with your team. 
4. Have regular meetings with your team, ask them what their challenges are, and work with them to find solutions and replicate success.

Emerging Leaders, Here’s How To Inspire Your Team

Listen our greatest asset to inspiration is our own story, it’s what we do day in and day out to change our perspective, life, career, and community. Inspiration is about helping people believe that things are possible. Believe in your team, inspire them with belief in them and yourself, and help them to greatness by giving them all the tools, resources, and support they need to be successful.

If you’re stepping into leadership and want to know what coaching services I offer for emerging leaders, please feel free to book a call here:

https://tidycal.com/anotherperspective/new-client-strategy-session

Or Join the Rebel Dream Lab and we can work together to give you the ability to shake things up and make your dreams come true.