Better Leadership: 7 Steps for Getting There

One of the mistakes leaders make in the development of their leadership skills is to channel their focus toward "best" - best practices, best efforts, best work. While the intention is admirable, the emphasis is inherently fleeting. "Best" is an effort, not a destination. We can try our best, but we will never become our best. Instead, we as leaders should be recalibrating our mindset toward the constant pursuit of better. Great leaders are continuously working toward the betterment of themselves, their people, and their communities. There are steps we can take to get to better - steps that will stick. Keep reading for the seven steps you can embark on today to become a better leader.

Step 1: Know Yourself

Before we can dive ahead and begin implementing strategies and tools, the first step requires that we strip everything back to our purpose. This may seem like a simple exercise, but it asks us to truly home in on our values and goals as leaders. What do you want for yourself as a leader? What do you want for your people? What is important to you and what do you hope to accomplish as a leader? It is critical to be intentional about what we want and value as leaders, so we can stay grounded and on track in terms of the efforts we need to invest in. Knowing who you are helps you decide which developmental resources or strategies are important to engage in - this step helps us anchor ourselves and guide our next move.

Step 2: Start With Your Strengths

The approach to betterment that starts with your weaknesses seems logical, but it often means we're setting ourselves up at the base of a very steep hill. Afford yourself the momentum that comes with building on your strengths instead. We often overlook everything we're doing well. Ask your colleagues, friends, or former employees (not current employees) - anyone who supports your development - what they see as your strengths. There may very well be areas we're thriving in that we don't immediately recognize (or those we think we're acing but could actually use some work). The affirmation and validation that comes with focusing first on our strengths builds the forward movement we need to engage in an earnest journey toward better. When we start building on the areas that we're already doing well, it becomes easier to then shift to those areas that need more development.

Step 3: Develop a Plan

Once you know what better leadership looks like to you, what your strengths are, and what you need to develop, developing a plan can be the difference between whether your goals are perceived or achieved. Documenting your goals and plan to get there offers motivation and allows you to break down your development into small increments. Those small increments will add up to massive results, and our consistent efforts can take us far beyond what we once thought of as our "best." Setting SMART goals - those that are specific, measurable, achievable, time-bound, and realistic - isn't a new concept, but try instead to set SMARTER goals - adding evaluation and review to your plan. Be sure to share your plan with at least three people who support your development to stay accountable to your plan.

Step 4: Construct Pathways for Feedback

It's impossible to assess our own progress and effectiveness accurately. The quality of our leadership is defined by the people on the receiving end of it, so feedback is the crucial ingredient to ensuring we're on track and investing in the right areas. Get your employees and team members involved by creating as many opportunities as possible for them to offer feedback, whether that's verbal, in an informal email, or through a formal process like a confidential review or feedback form. Regardless of the pathway to feedback, it must be easy to access, comfortable, and safe for your team to provide.

Step 5: Take Feedback Seriously

It's one thing to construct pathways to feedback, but if we don't take that feedback seriously - if we dismiss concerns that don't feel comfortable or relevant - we miss out on important areas of development. All feedback is important and we must remember that it can be challenging for our people to offer up feedback on our leadership skills. Whenever someone is attempting to provide feedback, no matter how it's framed, they're trying to communicate something important to us, and the success of our development as leaders rests on listening to that feedback. Negative feedback can be the hardest to take, but the feedback that evokes the biggest reaction in us is the feedback that we need to take the most seriously. Stay calm, listen, and integrate as much of that feedback into your development as you can.

Step 6: Practice, Practice, Practice

This might not seem like a groundbreaking notion, but we don't get to better without practicing our skills. Think of professional athletes: they log thousands of hours of practice outside of the game so they can be better in the game. They also rarely try something new in the game - they save that for practice. The same goes for leadership development. How often do you practice your skills outside of 'the game'? Connect with colleagues and friends who are leaders and set up a community of practice wherein you can talk about your development goals and put your skills to work outside of your workplace. Whether that's working on what a communication framework for dealing with conflict would look like or role playing with colleagues, we need to be intentional about trying out our skills.

Step 7: Have Fun!

This might seem like a strange or even trite step in leadership development, but it might in fact be the most important. This can look like finding what you enjoy in the work that you do, seeking out positive interactions with our colleagues, and discussing with your team what fun means to them and how you can contribute to ensuring they have a positive experience at work. To be clear, the notion of having fun in our leadership development isn't about implementing perks for our staff, it's about making the work enjoyable for everyone. Have lunch with your staff and talk about which aspects of their work they like the best. Connect with them and ensure you're staying positive in order to help mitigate the inevitable stress that comes with our work. Having fun can make bad days good and good days better.

Stephen de Groot is President and CoFounder at Brivia. Visit gettingtobetter.com to sign up for updates on the release of Stephen de Groot's new book, Getting to Better: A New Model for Elevating Human Potential at Work and in Life, where you'll get updates and access to exclusive pop-up events.