16 Ways to Think Like a Leader
The title of leader is common, even cheap. But, a person who thinks like a leader is a thing of beauty.
The first step toward becoming a leader is thinking like one.
Leadership is determined by the way you think about yourself, others, results, and organizations.
Unleaderly thinking compared with leaderly.
- Was it up to standard? / How can we do better?
- How can I get it done? / Who can get it done?
- Leave me alone so I can work? / Let’s do this together.
- I’m stressed. / What’s the emotional state of the team?
- Do what I want. / Do what we want.
- This is hard. / This is opportunity.
- I don’t know how. / Who knows how?
- I need help. / Who can I help?
- I’m not ready. / Let’s learn as we go.
- We can’t because… / What can we do?
- We’re done. / What’s next?
- We’ve always done it this way. / How can we simplify?
- It doesn’t matter. / How important is it?
- What do I enjoy doing? / What do you enjoy doing?
- Just ignore it. / Let’s deal with it.
- You screwed up. / What are you learning?
One thing more:
Thinking apart from taking action is futility.
Good people love getting things done. Leaders get things done through others.
What does thinking like a leader look like to you?
What does follower thinking look like?
Great list. The one I quibble is number 6:
“This is hard. / This is opportunity.” If, as a leader, you don’t realise and absorb that what has to be done is hard, then there’s that nasty possiblity that you turn round to your team when it isn’t going well and say “Why haven’t you finished this? I didn’t think it was that hard!”
Your team will not be inspired by this, believe me.
Thanks Mitch. I appreciate your quibble. You make me think about the importance of leaders who understand the work. Some organizations have new leaders spend time in each division actually doing the work. That’s an eye opener!!
I think a true leader will recognize a task is hard. I took this point to refer to someone who looks upon a task and throws up their hands, “This is hard, we’ll never achieve this goal” compared to a true leader who will think, “This is a challenging opportunity, whose with me?”
Just my take on it. I’ve never met a real leader who didn’t welcome a challenge or thought something was too hard to tackle.
Happy Sunday! Great list!
I notice that 12 of the 16 on the “leaderly” side are in the form of questions. I think pausing and asking open-ended, nonjudgmental questions, with genuine curiosity, is one of the ways to spot a great leader.
Mitch (above) highlights the opposite of this type of questioning with his excellent feedback. When leaders spend time doing the work, they can often sincerely ask: “What parts are challenging for you? What parts are easy? What help do you need from me (us)?”
Seems like there could be another list:
“The next step toward becoming a leader is feeling like one!”
Thanks for the post Dan!
Cindy
Thanks Cindy. I appreciate your insights and observation about open ended questions.
The next step of feeling like a leader is an interesting idea. I’ll have to feel like one before I write anything on it. 🙂
This is fantastic…. a leader has to be clear enough about what the deliverables are in order to get others to commit their best to it. that’s why I tell people that “micro management ” can best be intervention, temporary/shortlived as it were, rather an everyday leadership style.
Once again…fantastic piece.
Keep walking the Pathway of Champions
Aniekan
Thanks aniekanusoroh. Get clear on deliverables. … It’s pretty hard to lead without deliverables. But, I must confess, it’s easy to slip into just going through the motions.
I’m sticking this list on the fridge at home. Actually, I need to do better than that. I really feel the need to process this list and take them on board…eat it. My work at the moment as a writer is fairly solitary but in it’s in my role as a parent and being part of a family that I think these points have real application. We can take or leave our work but having better relationships with our loved ones is an ongoing life project. Rather than shouting,”How could you do that?” I love:”How can we do better?” And how many families have their “Just ignore it”. What a challenge to “Let’s deal with it.”
I live in Sydney and after the siege in the Lindt Cafe and events since then, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we can make the world a better place and have been focusing on the Golden Rule but you still need to have some tactics for putting that into practice and I see this list as being very helpful. Thanks a lot, Dan. These tips are going to be life changing!!
Thanks Rowena. I think this is the first time a Leadership Freak post made it to the refrigerator! Your transparency is inspiring and your application challenging. Best wishes for the journey.
You’re welcome. I think it’s important to apply what we learn to our professional and private lives and I think for most of us, the personal applications are the most challenging. They certainly are for me.
Funny! Just like the commenter above, I am printing this sucker out and putting it front and center at my desk! Reading this has already inspired me to make a decision which greatly freed up my time tomorrow and helped me maximize my resources. GREAT list!
Thanks Melanie. It’s great to be useful. I might have inspired you, but your comment, inspires me. Cheers
Thanks for yet another thought provoking post, Dan. I will use this during the week with a group of leaders, it will be the basis of a great discussion.
Thanks Michael. It’s always a pleasure when I hear about leaders who take these short posts and use them to start discussions. I’ve heard that start their meetings with a Freak of the Week. 🙂
Thinking like a leader. It means to me, waking up fresh,having new perspectives each day and know we can tackle it all. All the encounters on that day will be handled just fine.
Follower thinking means to me, being dependent of other ones thoughts and actions. Following up on that. It is just conditioned by someone else. The first one is unconditioned.
Thanks Dennis. I read optimism and taking ownership in your thoughtful comment. For me, optimism is about believing in others. Believing we can make things better. Learning from failure. Pressing into the future. (I feel like I could go on… maybe it’s a post)
Thanks for your insights.
Number 5; Maybe, let’s do what one of us wants?
I mean, there can never be a consensus on a lot of things. Leads to a lot of time wasted. Instead, let’s discuss 3 people who want to do it, discuss their ways, and follow one.
Thanks Reddish. Let’s pick one and adapt as we go. Every solution is imperfect.
We can’t miss those 6 important words: “people who want to do it.”
Cheers
As is often the case, it’s about asking the right questions…I do agree with some of the above comments that the leader has to hear and understand the perceptions of those he/she is leading, but instead of dwelling on the negative, asking the right question about how to help or turn that concern into a problem to solve instead of an insurmountable obstacle will help advance the mission.
Of course, Dan, after asking such positive questions, we have to listen work care and attention to the responses. Too often we overestimate our skill at listening, and the people around us experience is as inattentive or dismissive. The powerful alternative is what the folks at Barry-Wehmiller Companies call ” people-centric leadership”, and they require every leader to take three days of communication skills training to ensure they become expert at listening.
I really like this list and one of the things that comes up for me is the shift from an exclusion approach, involving judging, blaming, even shaming to inclusion involving an approach that is open, non-judging and curious where open questions are used to better understand others. We are moving from the Industrial hierarchal Era where exclusion was characterized by a right/wrong judging approach to the Knowledge inclusive Era where inclusion is characterized by a more collaborative approach focused on understanding and welcoming of diversity to build relationships. If leaders are to be effective and successful in this new era, I think they need to embrace this approach so they can build the relationships needed for collaboration, acceptance of differing perspectives and innovation.
Great list Dan and yet another ‘I need to do more of this’ provoking blog. For too long the ‘hero’ leadership theory has promoted the myth that leaders know everything, are always right and therefore never question themselves (at least not in public) . Distributed leadership requires humility, oft in short supply, yet vital to success in a world where believe me ‘deference is dead’ whether that’s from the citizen towards the supplier or the employee towards the hierarchy. Everyone questions more and trust is THE commodity that generates discretionary effort and service experience – as long as you are competent of course. I like your blogs Dan, I’m pretty busy like most of today’s leaders & managers so it’s brilliant to be constantly nudged about behaviours, attitudes and actions. Daily insights and discussions create new habits that create better leaders. I would print this off too but I can’t see my fridge door for all the other LF reminders!