It’s Day 11 but also the start of a new week.
Spend a little time as you start your week thinking about how you want to show up this week. What key leadership opportunities or challenges do you need to make the most progress on?
Your challenge for today is to craft a personal story that communicates your business change message.
Sharing personal stories to support your business messages is one of the best ways to engage and connect people. As you are leading change there is often so much noise and so many communications. Build your ability to tell great stories that create clarity around the purpose of the change and engage people ‘below the neck’.
Gabrielle Dolan is not only a friend, colleague and master of storytelling, she is a global thought leader on the subject. If you haven’t read one of her many books that will help you build your professional storytelling skills then order one today - https://gabrielledolan.com
And once you are comfortable with your story, practice it with a trusted colleague before delivering it to your teams and stakeholders. Believe me, when you get this right it will do amazing things to your ability to inspire and mobilise your teams around change.
And as always, we would love to hear from you about your progress. What’s working, where you are getting stuck and what else you need.
Day 12 - Empower your Team
Identify areas where you can delegate more effectively. And in doing this the purpose is to empower your teams to take ownership of adaptive challenges, not just the technical work or tasks.
Consider how your leadership is impacting effective delegation. Is your need for control or perfectionism getting in the way? Are you only delegating tasks and not the whole or the thinking?
There is a recipe for empowerment:
Leadership is everywhere, overt or latent, and I believe that everyone has the potential to lead. Given the power to do something, employees become stronger and more confident, especially if they feel in control and accountable for the outcomes. But to empower others is not just a question of handing over responsibility and tasks.
To empower is to trust
Reflect on the level of trust within your teams. Identify any area where trust might be compromised and take steps to rebuild it.
Day 13 - Building Coalitions
Earlier in this challenge you mapped your key stakeholders.
Today’s challenge is to consider which stakeholders are most important to the progress you need to be making and leading. Reach out, set up meetings to connect and to build coalitions that will support your change.
Successful leaders place a significant emphasis on relationships. And with that, they care about creating and nurturing their networks so that they can call on them in need, work with them and engage with them on key leadership goals.
So, engaging with your stakeholders is not a tick-the-box exercise. It should be done genuinely and consistently.
Not just when you want or need something done.
Day 14 - Share What You Are Learning
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
- Mahatma Gandhi
Some days are not easy. I remember facilitating an executive offsite with a new client a few years ago having had an unplanned biopsy that morning. The ice pack stuffed down my bra was quickly melting along with me, due to not being able to take my jacket off!
But the best thing I did was share what I was going through. It wasn’t my intention as I was driving to the offsite location. I thought I had a way of masking and hiding not just the ice pack but my emotional state! Sharing with the team completely reinforced my belief that we are better together.
Today’s challenge is to reflect on what you have learnt about yourself and your leadership over the last 2 weeks. And find ways to share with your teams, colleagues, and leaders.
Pay it forward! Then you will all benefit.
Day 15 - The Law of Priorities
It’s Friday today and the end of the third week of your 21 Day Leadership Challenge.
Reflect on the week and how you are making progress. What are you proud of? Where do you need to make some changes so you can pay attention to this for next week?
Today is your opportunity to reassess your current priorities.
The Law of Priorities is lesson number 17 from John Maxwell’s book – The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. He says the key to leveraging the law of priorities is called “the Pareto Principle” or more commonly “the 80/20 principle.” Maxwell says that ifwe spend most of our time working on the things in the top 20% of importance, it will give us 80% of the return we are looking for.
But most of the time we are adding to our to-do list and our diaries rather than removing or re-prioritising.
Today - delegate or eliminate meetings or jobs that don’t align with your strategic priorities and top leadership goals.
Be brutal! Removing one or two things won’t make much difference. Really challenge yourself.
And as always, we would love to hear from you about your progress. What’s working, where you are getting stuck and what else you need.
If you've missed out on any of this week's challenges, you can catch up here.