Is Your Leadership Aligned?

I write a lot about leadership because there is so much to say about it. Afterall, it is such a complex idea to understand what it means to be a leader, how to be a good leader, how to be a connected leader.

Here’s the crux of it…Leadership is an alignment between your beliefs, your values, and your behaviors.

It seems simple but at the end of the day, the people that we are leading only see our behaviors. So, we need to start and commit to behaviors that represent our values and our beliefs and do it consistently. Simple, yes. Easy? Definitely not.

That’s why it’s so important to get clear on your leadership brand and how you want to be known as a leader. Then you can understand how to develop behaviors that infuse those values into your interactions. That’s a core piece of the Connected Leader Course.

We actually just added two new videos to the Fall Program to help you get even more clear on how to do just that. Right at the start, we help you define your goals for behavioral change and craft action items to build that new habit.

The challenge is truly knowing what makes a good action item. Often with clients, I’ll hear things like, “I want to communicate more effectively”, and that means absolutely nothing.

What I ask them is …

1. How will you know you are communicating more effectively?
2. What specific, observable actions will you take to accomplish it?

In this case, some potential action items may be…

• I will speak at a slower pace and take pauses between sentences to allow someone to respond.
• I will speak more directly by using fewer words
• I will follow up communication to confirm understanding.
• I will ask questions before sharing my opinion.

In developing your action items, think about if somebody can observe the behaviors you are committing to. Ask yourself, what are the behaviors that are going to have somebody else say that you have improved?

What I hope all leaders, all people, are asking themselves regularly is…

What am I working on and what are the observable behaviors and actions that I will take to build a new skill or habit?

All these questions and more can be answered through our Connected Leader Course. You will learn how to expand, develop, influence, navigate, apply, and create the connected communication that will expand your leadership brand.