Four Ways to Reach The Leader’s Ultimate Goal
Lousy leaders are over-involved and frantic.
The leader’s ultimate goal is building teams that excel without them.
#1. Identify influencers.
Look beyond job titles or positions that may obscure true influencers in your organization. The self-protective good ole boy’s club may be a roadblock to maximizing true influencers.
10 questions to identify the real influencers in your organization:
- Who is authentic and genuine? Influencers have heart.
- Who believes in important ideas? Look for people who believe in excellence, consistency, and making things better, for example. Drifters aren’t influencers.
- Who is dependable?
- Who do people look to when they have questions or need help?
- Who do people gather around when having conversations?
- Who is working to make themself and others better?
- Who solves problems and remains optimistic at the same time?
- Who is willing to try things?
- Who has an exceptional skill or talent?
- Who do people trust?
Tip: Get over the idea that no one is quite good enough, when searching for influencers. Work with people who are almost good enough.
Spend time with real influencers, especially if they don’t have titles.
#2. Build relationships with influencers.
Don’t be formal and stiff. Forget about agendas. Connect with influencers by understanding who they are and celebrating their talent.
#3. Develop influencers.
- Explore where they want to go, not where you want them to go.
- Offer to be helpful.
- Provide new opportunities.
- Connect them with other influencers.
- Help them stop doing things that waste their talent.
#4. Challenge and release influencers.
5 questions that help leaders capitalize on influencers:
- How might you challenge influencers to stretch their talent?
- How might you challenge influencers to challenge themselves?
- What can you do to get out of the way?
- How might leaders create environments that leverage the power of many influencers?
- How might influencers create new influencers?
How might leaders create teams that excel without them?
Dan excellent post. Finding , developing and benefitting from influencers is critical. What I found in large firms is that Human Resources, who should make this process easier, often make it harder if they try to control or manage who they think are the “high potential” people. The heads of the businesses or staff groups need to stand up and identity these people on their own.
Brad
Brad James, author The Business Zoo
Thanks Brad. I’m glad you brought up HR. In some cases, HR is vastly under-respected and under-leveraged. It’s true, HR might feel like a hindrance because of the challenges they try to prevent.
Your suggestion that the leaders who are closest to the action need to be central to this process is so helpful. Best wishes
We used to call them “Indian Chiefs” over here. Great post!
Thanks Elijah. I take it that being an “Indian Chief” isn’t a good thing. 🙂 Political correctness might take offense, but I think I get the point. Cheers
The second thing I was told by my boss when I started working in science was “If I do my job right, if anything happens to me, the work just carries on and nobody notices.”
Obviously in small teams, where there might be only one person with a particular specialism, sooner or later you will notice, but I got the sentiment and I’ve tried to apply it ever since.
Creating a team of influencers takes time and patience. I’ve noticed that trust & respect are key to #1 & #2. Both of these characteristics take time to observe and build upon. Once the relationships are in place, the leader has developed a team that has the potential to excel with or without them.
Wow, Dan! The first 10 points blew me away.
Pet peeve of mine: Drifters are trouble (as in “drifting-logs-floating-just-under-the-surface” trouble), as the only influence they have is stopping others.
Dan:
This blog post reminded me of a professional development session our Superintendent had school leaders attend. We had a trainer who walked us through the book, The Multiplier Effect: Tapping the genius Inside Our Schools. Much of what you posted plays hand in hand to the training we received to build multipliers in our school district.