What’s your leadership superpower? Are you Captain Transparency? Are you able to engage your team in a single bound? Or do you have a superhuman ability to develop those around you?
What if I told you there’s a superpower that combines transparency, engagement and developing others…and then shared tips for transforming into a leader who possesses all three?
Prepare to don the impenetrable suit of a Resolution Renovator (imagine a narrator’s booming voice for full effect)! Becoming a Resolution Renovator involves using the recent flurry of resolution-, intention- and goal-setting activities as a springboard for forging deeper connections with your team.
Reveal Your Secret Identity
While it’s common for leaders to share business goals with their teams, consider revealing your personal and professional development goals to your team as well…and asking them for feedback on your progress throughout the year. You’ll foster a deeper connection, reinforce the importance of development and model vulnerability and transparency. Google has included everyone’s goals in its internal directory…how’s that for transparency?!
Explore Your Teams’ Personal Goals
The New Year marks a great opportunity to discuss new professional development goals and progress towards existing ones. It also affords an opportunity to ask how you can support any personal goals your direct reports may wish to share – an ideal topic for an engagement conversation.
Repurpose General Resolutions
Brainstorm ways to turn popular resolutions – including those that seem completely unrelated to work – into professional development opportunities. Try asking these questions of your team or individual direct reports:
a. Get in Shape: What wasteful or inefficient processes should we tighten up? Who would like to explore potential solutions?
b. Enjoy Life / Travel: What have you always wanted to experience or try at work, and how can I help make that happen this year?
c. Spend Less / Save More: Instead of external conferences or training, which internal experts might we enlist for shadowing or mentoring? Conversely, how can you lend your expertise to others as a mentor, workshop facilitator or presenter?
d. Spend More Time with Family & Friends: Who else in your network can support your goals? What introductions or connections can I make for you?
e. Volunteer: How can you apply the skills and strengths developed through volunteerism to your job (e.g., communications, problem-solving, strategic planning, collaboration)? Let’s be sure to recognize your professional growth in those areas.
Although studies show most resolutions fail, you can use them successfully as a backdrop for practicing transparency, engaging your team and exploring development opportunities all year round.
What leadership approach will you try to meet your goals and resolutions?
