Three Skill Sets to Drive Your Leadership Performance

There is nothing more destructive to an organization than a leader who is out of touch. You have to remain relevant. There is no doubt our world has changed; a lot of it for the better. Our workforces have also changed in the cultural adaptations of how we treat women and minorities with dramatic and positive change. If you haven’t yet adapted to these realities as a leader in the forms of jokes, condescending phrases, and other unacceptable cultural norms you are heading for troubled waters. Are you prepared to accept the personal and professional consequences of knowingly or unknowingly
demeaning the inherent value of another human being? Yet behaviour lapses time and time again show us that the inability or unwillingness to adapt and stay relevant to these changes reveal leadership weakness that lead to irresolvable damage to team unity, team cohesion, and team performance. Following are three foundational skills sets every leader should hone to develop high level behaviour performance to maximize highly effective relationships with team members.

1.Develop a Learner’s Attitude
Success in every dimension of life is related to your ability to connect with others. It is also true that your success is directly related to your ability and willingness to learn, to change, to adapt, and to grow. Relationships by their nature require constant and consistent tending. The quality of care you put into these relationships translates into either a negative or a positive behaviour experience for other people. When leaders share meaningful learning experiences with their employees, they gain empathy and compassion for the people doing the work of the organization. Consequently the compassion and respect experienced by team members drives levels of employee engagement to higher levels. (See Harvard Business Review, “Power Can Corrupt Leaders. Compassion Can Save Them,” Hougaard, Carter, Chester, February 15, 2018.)

2. Develop Humility
In their book, Laws of Lifetime Growth, Dan Sullivan and Catherine Nomura, write about the connection between humility and leadership influence: “Only a small percentage of people are continually successful over the long run. These outstanding few recognize that every success comes through the assistance of many other people—and they are continually grateful for this support.”

No one person wins alone regardless of the level of individual talent. Humility is a leadership character trait that Good to Great author Jim Collins identified in what he calls “Level 5 leadership.” Collins and his team identified that level 5 leaders always accept blame for mistakes and give away all praise for success to others – a habit they call “the Window and the Mirror.” As a leader, can you give up what you believe is your right to finding fault with others, accept personal accountability and responsibility for the stewardship obligation you have as a leader? Can you be open to receiving candid and honest feedback about your own behaviour and its impact on those you lead? Can you become excited about letting others help you learn about your own habits to improve the effectiveness of your leadership influence?

3. Develop Selflessness
In the book, High Altitude Leadership, Chris Warner and Don Schmincke discuss the debilitating toll selfishness takes on companies. They call the destructive and unproductive condition of selfishness “dangerous, unproductive, dysfunctional behaviour” or DUD behaviour. Using real-life climbing experiences of the world’s tallest summits, the authors demonstrate eight dangers that not only can cost you your life on a mountain but derail your organizational strategy as well. Selfishness is one of these dangers. Selfishness, the disregard for the welfare and the needs of others, will prevent you from reaching the highest levels of your performance. Selflessness, putting the needs of others ahead of your own, is essential to creating and sustaining positive and supportive connections with your team. It fuels your performance success.

Acquiring new skills also requires learning and change — one cannot learn and still be the same person, team, or organization. There is a constant evolution in the way we think and act, brought about by new understanding, new knowledge, and new skills. When you are ready to change, start with the skill of Positive Presence, an innovative thought model connecting workplace behaviour to human energy and provides a systematic, programmatic methodology for equipping leaders with the knowledge and understanding necessary for developing and sustaining the behaviour skills needed for influential leadership.