Episode #403: How To Be A Role Model As A Leader

Smirks appear quite quickly when you mention “role model” and “leaders” in the same breath. Most peoples’ experiences with leaders as role models have been that they encompass the “what not do as a leader” variety. Hanmen Kyoshi (反面教師) or teacher by negative example, as we say in Japanese. What are some of the things we should be focused in our quest to become a real role model for our teams?

We can break the role model aspect into four major areas: Self-Aware; Accountability; Others-Focused and Strategic. Within these four categories there are eleven sub-categories on which we are going to focus today. Do a mental audit on yourself and see how many boxes you can check acknowledging that you are doing a good job.

1. Self-Aware covers a number of sub-categories:

“Self-Directed”. Leaders have to give others direction, so they must be independent types who don’t have to rely on others to know what to do.

They have to be “Self-Regulated” which is a fancy pants way of saying they need strong personal discipline. The leader has to decide what needs to be done and then marshals everything needed to get the job done. This effort has to be sustained over time and that is where the self-discipline aspect kicks in.

“Develop Self” talks about taking 100% responsibility for one’s own career. Depending on others, or the company in general, to take care of your career is folly. We need to represent value to an employer, because if we don’t, then we will be replaced by someone who does. The tricky thing about business is they keep moving the goal posts. What was required when you started and what is required today, may be quite different. Scarily different. If you have been pursuing your own personal growth, then there is a safety factor involved to enable you to weather the storms.

“Confident” is a vague term really. What actually defines being “confident”. We can recognize it more easily than we can articulate it. A leader who has confidence speaks in a certain way, with a certain finality. Hesitation never arises and the body language backs up the words.

2. Accountability is another area with sub-categories:

“Competent” describes our capability to understand the business and do the work. Most people rise through the ranks, so they have done the jobs their staff are doing, so they know the content well. Changing jobs and entering as a mid-career hire can make the competence piece a challenge.

“Honesty and Integrity” are both problem sub-categories. Honesty is easier to gauge than integrity. We can see if you are honest and can measure it. However, while everyone says how important integrity is, defining it is a challenging task. Saying and doing what you say, is a fundamental basis of demonstrating integrity, as is standing for higher ideals. How do you behave when no one is watching?

3. Others-Focused is a big sub-category and so not all aspects can be covered here, but we will focus on some key areas:

“Inspiring” is in the eyes of the beholder, except as the boss you have to inspire everyone. So we need to uncover what the range of views on the subject are amongst the troops, in order to get an idea of how we need to appeal to everyone’s needs.

“Develops Others” means going beyond the managerial functions of everything done on time, to spec and to budget. It means putting time into coaching staff and giving them stretch tasks through delegation. Most people stay functionally at the manager level and never quite level up sufficiently to become a true leader.

“Positively Influences Others” is an all weather skill for leaders. Our grumpy mood can bring down the motivation of the team. Also speaking ill of other divisions or sections to knit your own team together, makes the team doubt the robustness of the organization.

“Effectively Communicates” sounds reasonable, except most new leaders are not very good at speaking in public. They do not generate confidence in what they are saying by the unprofessional way they are saying it. We need to get the training and master this attribute.

4. The last category we will cover here is Strategic.

We will deal with just one sub-category “Uses Authority Appropriately”. We are talking about using our position power for good, rather than self-aggrandisement. Bossing people around to boost our own fragile ego and having the need for power over others is totally sad. We are given power to help our people do better and that is the only reason.

So how was your self audit? We now have a framework to place around the term “role model” and we know where we have more work to do. Always a good thing for a leader.