What Can You Do?
Discover more from How to Lead Everybody (with their permission)
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. ~ Alice Walker
As leaders, we have authority. But we also have influence. When we are aware of this influence, we can use it to maximize the people around us, to build a team, to build a community, and/or to build a movement.
Too many times, we think of our role in terms of the org chart. I encourage you to think beyond that—think to the relationships that spread in a web throughout the organization. You might be someone’s boss, but do you also like them as a person? Respect them as a professional? Have a mentoring role in their lives? These are areas where the connection and influence can grow.
Think about the people on your team, and how they interconnect. Can you encourage camaraderie in the workgroup through team-building? Can you pair up two team members who would make each other better? Can you grow their emotional intelligence to give them a better foundation to build relationships with clients?
Yes, we have power from our place in the org chart. But we have so much more power we can harness when we remember the “peopling” side of our position.
(Photo by Ian Stauffer on Unsplash)