(E6) How a personal leadership strategy will improve your impact
If you’re struggling to take people with you and make the right impact in your organisation - you may think the problem lies with the poeple around you, whether its your Board, your staff, your stakeholders. Maybe you think they’re not up to the job or they’re wilfully pushing against your direction. You may think you don’t have the right governance processes in place - another committee or working group needs to be set up to make the actions happen.
But how often do you look internally at how well you’ve set out your stall and created the right conditions around you in order for others to perform well?
In this episode of the leaders with impact podcast I’ll be exploring how your personal leadership strategy can mean the difference between low or high performing organisations and what you can do to get clarity in how you show up as an impactful leader.
In episode one I talked about my SLC framework - the three things you need in place in order to make a great impact as a leader. SLC stands for strategy, self-leadership and communication.
And you may remember me saying that these three areas almost worked like cogs - they’re interdependent on each other. If any of these three are out of kilter in your leaders, you’ll notice it in your organisation - it will show up in the performance, in the productivity, in the morale and ultimately in the reputation of that individual, most likely in their team and if they are senior-enough you’ll see it more widely as it infects the culture of the organisation.
I wanted to focus today’s episode on the stratgey cog. Because I’m not talking about organisational strategy, I’m talking about personal leadership strategy.
And there is a difference.
I think it can be hard for some leaders in organisations to distinguish between having a personal strategy and an organisational one. It’s perhaps perceived as something for personality-led businesses, for entrepreneurs, when the leader of the organisation IS the organisation (that in and of itself can cause issues and plays into my point that you need some distinction between an organisation and its leadership - just think of companies like Jo Malone).
Simply put, your organisational strategy is the overarching vision and direction the organisation is heading in. High performing organisations are really clear on their strategy - and without that anchor an organisation will flounder.
But what also sets them apart is that leaders of high performing organisations are clear on their personal strategies too.
Organisational and personal success happens when leaders have a personal strategy. And I want to share with you why you might want to be giving your personal strategy a lot more thought than you might have done so far.
So let’s break it down…
What exactly is a personal leadership strategy?
Being intentional about who you are as a leader and what you can offer an organisation…
It’s your personal values, your vision, your objectives in the role, what you’re going to do to achieve those objectives and how you’re measuring the impact you’re having. These are all similar phrases that you’ll see and hear in organisational strategies - but we’re not looking at the macro, we’re looking at the micro … what your contribution is to an organisation, how you’re going to show up and deliver, in effect your style and approach to taking people with you to achieve the organisational goals
When I talk to organisations, you can see when a lack of personal leadership strategy is getting in the way … staff know what the organisation is trying to achieve but they’re confused because they don’t know what the leaders stand for, what matters to them, what makes them tick, where they want their teams to focus or prioritise, why they should be doing what they’re doing. And it can come across as lacking oomph, flip-flopping on decisions, being inconsistent with what they say and do (it has a big impact on the self-leadership piece which I’ll cover in more detail in another episode)
Having clarity in your personal leadership strategy helps…
with that connection piece with your teams … it’s how you build trust and take people with you - they get you, your values and what you stand for and they are willing to take the actions because they believe in you
you show up authentically and provides that compass for your actions and decision making
you stand out from others when you’re applying for that next role - you’re able to articulate your vision for the organisation and what you’ll bring that might be different to the next person
you to understand in what types of organisations and situations serve you best … for example, you may be a leader whose strategy is always to focus on recovery and turnaround - you come in and take short, sharp action. You’re not necessarily going to be the right person to pitch yourself to a company looking for a nurturing, culture-building, slow-burning leader.
By having a defined personal leadership strategy you are going to be better equipped to deal with the challenges your organisation faces and maximise the opportunities … that sounds like some corporate BS bumph, but what I effectively mean is having your own leadership strategy gives you greater self-awareness about the type of leader you are and that will only be of benefit to your organisation.
How to start building your personal leadership strategy if it’s something you haven’t really considered before:
Define your purpose as a leader - there’s loads of exercises you could do to help you with this, but what you’re trying to tap into is what sparks you up inside. You might find looking at past experiences helpful or chatting to friends or colleagues about what you bring to a situation - and then pulling out keywords and themes that ignite that fire the belly that we heard from Sheron Carter, CEO of Hexagon Housing in ep 4
Understand your values - these are things that drive your behaviours and guide your decision-making - again, lots of exercises that can help you and with some of my clients we work through eliciting what they are and distinguishing those that are aspirational and those that are perhaps more closely linked to the way we operate on a day to day basis
Honestly assess what your strengths are, the skills you bring and reflect on where you might need to improve - including a reflection on your emotional intelligence, how self-aware you are in terms of what triggers you, how you respond to others - and make sure to factor in feedback from others, formal and informal
Set goals - they might be organisationally focussed, they might be industry specific, they could be even more broad than that. The important thing is that they’re going to help you to deliver your purpose
Measure the impact - ask yourself how will I know what I’m doing is working?
Create an implementation plan - what are the actions you’re going to take to achieve those goals? How will you be living your leadership strategy? (this is your self-leadership piece again, it might be what are the boundaries you set and how you stick to them, how you decide you’re going to run your team / service / organisation)
Plan how to communicate and engage - how are you going to be telling people about who you are, what you stand for, your vision and how it aligns with the team or company vision or goals? How will people know your boundaries and how you work? What are the questions you’ll be asking and testing as you go about
Your personal strategy and organisational strategy are different things, but they still require some alignment.
You can’t be fundamentally opposed in your values or a key facet in the way of working. Well, you can, but it isn’t going to bring you job satisfaction, it probably won’t keep you motivated for long … and will definitely frustrate you if you think you can get the organisation to do a 180 and they don’t. From a wellbeing point of view at least it isn’t sustainable to have those feelings all the time in your role.
If you look at the reason organisations hire leaders, it’s mainly to take the majority of people with them. If your strategies and approaches are misaligned then you’re going to struggle to do that, you might gain a few followers who believe in you and your approach but that isn’t the impact an organisation looks for.
What I’m not saying is that you can only work somewhere where is 100% alignment. And I’m not saying you can’t close the gap either if things are misaligned. Gaining alignment is another key skill of a high impact leader. And you absolutely can do this between your personal and organisational strategies.
Steps to gaining alignment between your personal leadership strategy and your organisational strategy
Understand the organisational strategy and objectives - where it is heading in the short and long term. Now you may be helping to set that, or you may have joined an organisation where you’re implementing your predecessors strategy
Review your own values and aspirations - where do you want to go in your career at that organisation?
Map these things against each other - see where there is convergence and divergence - this is going to show you where there are gaps, how far out you are and most importantly allows you to ask how much do you want to close that gap
If you do want to close those gaps - you need to look at how you’re going to move towards the other side. And this is key, we can focus so much on how we’re going to bring people to us, we make ourselves the focus - but getting alignment and buy-in, in whatever aspect you’re trying to, is about you trying to understand what’s important to others - listening and responding directly to that:
Set some goals that are focussed on how you’re going to move towards achieving the organisational goals
Look at what your responsibilities are and what you’re prioritising and communicate clearly with everyone so they understand how what you’re doing is contributing to the bigger picture
Consider how you’re leading by example, showing that your actions and decisions are supportive of the organisational strategy
Look at your stakeholders, identify where you need to build relationships and maybe where you need withdraw. As a senior leader, the alignment across the executive team is super important - so you need to be having those conversations about how individual and collective strategies must work together to achieve the organisational aims, and having honest conversations where there is a conflict.
Throughout, keep checking on and assessing your progress and effectiveness and adapt course if needed. Be open to change. Seek feedback regularly. Test if that alignment is there.
I’m not going to pretend that once you’ve got a personal strategy everything is going to be smooth sailing … remember the three cogs I mentioned at the beginning, your strategy won’t work without self-leadership and communication as well.
As with any personal change, you’re going to meet challenges and resistance, it’s normally other people kicking against things changing (no-one likes change, especially if it changes power dynamics etc), you’ll need to understand what is natural kick-back and what is your strategy going off-course. There’s no such thing as perfect, and all high performing teams get comfortable with taking risks, admitting when things go wrong and changing course when needed.
If you do face resistance, go back to the steps around building alignment. Be clear in communicating who you and what you stand for. Be the example you’re trying to set. Reflect, seek feedback, learn and evaluate to help you understand the next steps you need to take.
Remember like with any strategy, it’s not something you do once and leave on a shelf, it’s a living document and an ongoing process that will change and adapt as you do as a person.
Resources and helpful links
If you’ve listened to this episode and decided that you need to be more purposeful and intentional in your leadership strategy then my one-day intensive is a great starting point.
This is a full day, just you and me, unpacking and reconstructing what you want to achieve as a leader. Whether you’re applying for a new role and want be more impactful in how you pitch yourself, you’re starting in a new role and want to hit the ground running and increase your chances of success, or you’re in a role but feeling like failing to connect with others and take them with you, then this day will help you to get clarity and develop a plan of action.
