You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Introduction
I often times work with first time leaders or people wanting to grow into a leadership role in their company. There seems to be a prevalent belief that you have to be given a leadership role first, before you can lead in any tangible way.
This is not necessarily the truth (spoiler alert, it isn’t). When you start showing leadership potential, or you are the go to person at your organisation you are more likely to be promoted into a more formal leading role that you think.
Leadership, after all, is about influence and not titles.
Why lead when you’re not in charge?
The Project Management Institute claims that 55% of major project successes are attributed to the efforts of informal leaders within the organization.
The Society for Human Resource Management claims that 72% of employees say they rely on their peers for guidance and leadership more than their direct supervisors.
If you look at those numbers it seems like a lot of what I’m talking about in this blog post is already happening.
Which traits make up a good leader from within?
1. Empower & Support
Support others through mentoring, sharing knowledge, or lending a hand with their tasks.
Some companies have internal apprenticeship programs to help them grow their own talent. If you work in such a company, sign up to be a mentor to help apprentices learn the skills they are required to learn to become a full member of the team.
Regardless of if your company has an apprenticeship program in place or not you can empower your colleagues by recognising their strengths and finding ways to showcase and highlight their abilities.
It creates a supportive atmosphere around your sphere and shows you’re committed to the teams overall success.
2. Radiate Work Ethics
Be perceived as someone with a strong work ethic. Always maintain a high standard of yourself.
- Always meet your deadlines
- Consistently produce top work
This sets a standard and motivates others to improve their own performance, creating a positive ripple effect.
3. Be a Change Maker
Identify opportunities for improvement and act on them without waiting for instructions.
This can be done in a multiple of ways. You can suggest new initiatives when you recognise a better way to do the things your team is doing improving existing workflows.
“We sometimes talk about sharpening the tools we got at hand. The open source library I relased recently came from a project I was working on, we decided to use an adaptation of the Command Query Segregation Pattern, but simplify it. It was okay the way it worked, but as we were working on a Ruby on Rails codebase I decided to sharpen our tool by developing generators for our library to make the creation of these components even easier.”
Another thing you can do is willingly taking on difficult tasks (specially if you are confident you will be able to finish them successufully).
This demonstrates that you embrace change and want to drive positive impact.
4. Solve Hard Problems
When encountering obstacles, focus on solutions rather than dwelling on the issue. No one likes it when people get stuck on an issue and trying to find culprits; roll up your sleeves and find a way to solve the problem at hand. Take your time to investigate and research the issue—others may have already solved it.
This shows your ability to navigate challenges and find solutions.
5. Build Relationships
Cultivate connections with colleagues across different departments and levels.
After meeting with a department like marketing, for example, follow up to share what caught your attention. Show interest in their work.
This helps you develop strong, meaningful connections in your organisation (and beyond)
You have the power to lead from wherever you are in your organisation!