The opportunity to be a leader in your organization is an awesome one, but as Voltaire once said – “with great power comes great responsibility.” Now that you are a leader, you are responsible for successfully guiding your team to success. Whether your team is small or includes the entire organization, the steps are the same. The only difference is that the scope may be a more or less broad and/or some of the elements may or may not be pre-defined.
So, let’s get to it! Here’s 5 “responsible” steps for successfully starting a leadership role:
1. Create a Vision – A successful leader must have a vision of what the future holds for his or her team. This is where a leader paints a picture of what the organization’s landscape will look like 1, 2, 5 years down the road – whatever timeframe most applies. Your vision will give your team a clear picture of what the landscape will look like and how your organization will succeed and deliver value in the future landscape. Sit down, write this and just let your fingers type away. One paragraph, one page, 5 pages, doesn’t matter, get it down on paper and you can refine it from there.
2. Find your Mission – Given your prediction for the future landscape and organization will succeed and deliver value within it, identify the critical, high-level steps needed to make that vision a reality. What essential things will your organization have to do to support and realize your vision? This isn’t a list of everything your organization does, instead this is the high-level list of you are committing to doing to realize your vision. For example, listing all of your products and services would be a “no-no” here. But describing the value you are committed to delivering through your products and services would be a “yes-yes.”
3. Come up with a Theme – in order to successfully communicate visions, missions, strategies, etc. people need an easy and concise way of summing it all up. This is where a theme can be very effective. A theme gives people a “framework” to wrap up everything your organization is set out to accomplish. With a theme, you can be consistent and concise in your internal and external communications.
4. Find a tag line or short statement that sums up your vision, mission, and strategy – in order to help people in your organization make decisions that are consistent with your vision, mission, and strategy it is critical to have a simple way of reminding them what is or isn’t aligned with organizational goals. For example, your team will always be faced with decisions that you cannot be a part of, however, you want them to always consider your vision and mission. A short tag line or statement gives them a quick filter to run their decision through prior to finalizing it. Case in point – when I worked for MBNA, they had a tag line that read – “think of yourself as the customer.” It was short, sweet, and to the point. Anytime I was faced with a decision, big or small, I thought about the tag line which lead me to ask myself – “if I was the customer of this project (or email, letter, phone call, etc.) would I find this valuable?” If the answer was no, then I would work on it some more to make sure it passed through the filter. If the answer was yes, then I knew I could proceed. It was as if the leader who created that tagline was sitting next to me helping me decide if what I was going to do was right for the company or not.
5. Meet and get to know each and every one of your team members – If you are the CEO, this may be easier said than done, but not impossible. When I worked at Merrill Lynch, I was told by the older guys that one of the former CEO’s (Bill Schreyer) used to walk around regional offices and shake everyone’s hand. He remembered details like your son playing in an important soccer game and asked you how it went. Point is that even if it’s hard, it’s not impossible. The reason it is important to take time to meet with -at the very least your most direct – team members is because in order for them to pursue your vision, they have to be aligned with it. In order for that to happen, you need to understand what their personal vision, goals, and desires are. When you have a good understanding of that, you can begin to help them align their vision, goals, and desires with those you have for the organization as a whole. When there is alignment in these critical areas, everyone begins to run in the same direction. The only way to do this is through personal conversations – not surveys, big meetings, etc. Ask team members out for a cup of coffee, have lunch, or simply get together in their respective offices.
These five steps will help you get off to a strong and successful start as a leader. When you accomplish these five steps you then unlock a bonus sixth step, which will help you take your organization to the next level.
Bonus Step #6
6. Identify your Value Proposition – Your value proposition is defined as the elements of your organization that set you apart from the rest. It’s that way you do things that cannot be so easily copied. It’s not a single product, it’s not a single service. It’s the over arching value you provide to your customers that your competitors do not and cannot not easily copy. For example, when you think of a company like Apple, their value proposition has to do with simplicity, ease of integration, and style. This is the fabric the lines the company. It isn’t one product, it’s the entire company. Everything they do. That is a value proposition. There are many computer companies out there, but they all struggle to copy this. At Apple, I would not be surprised if their value proposition is integrated into their culture as well. Essentially, they live and breath their value proposition. In order to identify your value proposition, you need to have a VERY STRONG understanding of what your organization does, how it does it, and why it does it. Furthermore, what are the overlapping strengths of the people in your organization? Put all this together and your value proposition will emerge.
Dynamiko U 