Leadership Traits: How To Be A People Mover
Do you have people mover leadership skills?
Each businessperson has a unique leadership style. Some of it is learned and some of it is hardwired into your executive fabric.
Are you:
An instinctive mentor?
Growing a large, high quality professional network?
Able to keep your perspective on employee performance and potential?
Business executives who are natural mentors and motivators can improve their people mover skills. Those who are not instinctive talent spotters with nurturing qualities can neutralize their leadership weaknesses in these areas. I am tagged as a people mover. Here are some leadership traits that I have refined throughout my military and corporate careers.
Talent spotter: Great businesses have the right people in complimentary roles. Adjust your goals to match the talent on your roster. Find new talent to fill gaps in your lineup. Promote first from within your organization to build loyalty.
Career builder: Provide the resources and opportunities to grow your employees. Put them in roles that stretch their abilities with a high likelihood of success. Avoid career stagnation by rotating responsibilities on your team and providing professional development.
Motivator: Use words that encourage and build up your employees. Let them know you care even when you must critique and correct performance. Never deprive someone of their dignity with a public rebuke. Give public words of affirmation and private correction.
Parental and nurturing qualities: Parents instinctively know when and how to scold and when to encourage. They have big wings under which their kids can seek shelter from the storms of life. Your employees should feel safe under your leadership to learn, grow and add value to the team.
Take the lead in building teams: People movers are naturally inclined to form a team for the purpose of winning in the business arena. Are you the person who usually organizes a team to accomplish a strategic objective?
Instinctive mentor: Some people are sought out as mentors like sunflowers tilt toward the sun. There is an empathetic energy and perceived competency about people movers that gives others the confidence to seek their counsel. They know you care.
Large contact lists: People movers are fantastic network builders. They take effortless joy in making new business contacts and preserving existing relationships. The quality of the people in their network is more important than pure numbers so they carefully screen and prune their contact database.
Introduce new people to new ideas and new paths: People movers have an insatiable appetite for new information. They never stop learning and are eager to share discoveries with their peers and teammates.
Mindful of employees life outside of work: One of the greatest gifts a leader can give their employees is schedule and work flow flexibility. A working mom places great value on starting the workday later so she can drop her kids at school. Create an environment of accountability for productivity instead of time clock management.
View performance through the larger lens of potential: Many employees live in fear of making the mistake which gets them fired. An executive with people mover skills has a strong stomach for mistakes. Employees feel comfortable risking the dreaded experience of missing the mark because the leader has their back. The employee can confidently tend to the causes that drive results without worrying about the actual outcome.
Out of touch with nothing in common they know you care: One of the greatest perks of being a people mover is the frequent calls, email and Tweets from peers and employees that you worked with long ago. They reach out with updates on personal and career changes even though much time has passed since the last contact. Why? Because they know you genuinely care.
Develop your leadership strengths if you have an instinctive ability to mentor, build a career, spot talent, motivate and nurture. Neutralize your leadership weaknesses if you struggle to build effective teams, network, learn and share. Every leader can have compassion for life outside the office. Convince them you care.
by: Michael Shelton
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