Leadership isn’t an innate quality that a few people have and others don’t. Though many people ask, “Are leaders born or made?” the better question is, “How can I become a better leader tomorrow than I am today?” Ordinary people show outstanding leadership every day, and everyone has the potential to be an effective leader.
We’ve compiled advice from eight authors who know a thing or two about leadership excellence: Barry Posner, James M. Kouzes, Dana Perino, Bill George, Mark Divine, Marshall Goldsmith, John C. Maxwell, and Jon Gordon. Their approaches will help you learn how to become a better leader and unlock your full potential.
Table of Contents
Advice for Understanding Yourself
According to The Leadership Challenge, before you can effectively lead others, you must have a clear understanding of yourself. Leadership growth is essentially a process of self-development.
To become a better leader, Barry Posner and James M. Kouzes say you need a strong internal guidance system. When you have a clear idea of your own values and priorities, you can better evaluate the numerous messages you receive daily, with various (and often conflicting) advice on how to spend your time, what to focus on, and what to choose to do.
Your internal guidance system comes from the lessons you’ve learned from past experiences, challenges, and observations. Examine these lessons closely to ensure that they align with your goals and the values you want to hold. Research shows that reflecting on your experiences every day, even for just a few minutes, can significantly improve your performance. Some questions you can ask yourself include:
- What are my greatest achievements to date, and what drove me to accomplish them?
- What values do I want to guide my actions?
- What do I need to do to improve my skills or those of my team?
- What are my goals for my organization or team for the next 10 years?
- What can I draw upon for courage in the face of challenges?
Growing Into Leadership
Dana Perino and other experts in I Wish Someone Had Told Me… argue that you can become a great leader by focusing on a vision and your team. This section will explore three key pieces of advice for leaders:
- Choose to lead.
- Start by listening.
- Give genuine feedback.
Choose to Lead
Former NYPD inspector Paul Mauro says you should choose between merely managing—keeping things running and playing it safe—and truly leading, which involves breaking new ground and guiding people toward a vision. If you decide to lead, consider who you’d like to be led by, and then emulate that person’s leadership style.
(Shortform note: You might want to keep Mauro’s advice in mind before you get to a leadership position. Recall Perino’s earlier piece of advice to choose the boss, not the job. If you choose well, you’ll also be choosing a positive leadership model to emulate as you climb the ranks.)
Also, tell your team where you want them to go rather than dictating how they should get there. This empowers teams to use their ingenuity and inspires people to follow you rather than just comply. However, Mauro warns that most people say they want to lead but eventually default to managing because they get complacent in safe but unfulfilling roles. If you find yourself only managing and not leading, it might be time to look for a new role.
Start by Listening
Perino writes that listening without getting distracted is the most important leadership skill. This kind of listening reduces miscommunication and prevents your team from developing a reluctance to speak up that can lead to costly mistakes.
To become a great listener, Perino suggests the following tips:
- Don’t multitask while someone is talking. You can’t do two things well simultaneously, so set your phone face down on the table to prevent distractions.
- Don’t interrupt others or finish their thoughts for them. You can even place your thumb and forefinger in front of your lips to physically remind yourself not to interrupt.
- Actively ask for and listen to input from others, particularly during difficult times when clear direction and strategies are most needed.
Give Genuine Feedback
Finally, as a leader, you get to support other people’s careers. Journalist and author Salena Zito says your compliments can be meaningful and motivating if people earn them through hard work and high standards. You should provide honest feedback and encouragement to boost confidence, reinforce good habits, and foster a growth-oriented environment. Offer sincere and specific praise when someone does well, ensuring that your compliments are thoughtful and deserved.
Strategies for Finding Your Leadership Identity
There are a lot of responsibilities when it comes to leadership, and it can be easy to fall into traps that make you a bad leader. But according to Bill George, there are two steps to optimize your leadership so you can reach your full potential.
Strategy # 1: Find Your Ideal Role
In Discover Your True North, Bill George says that your ideal role will showcase your strongest skills and allow you to spend time doing things you’re highly motivated to do. To identify this kind of role and learn how to be a better leader, reflect on your strengths and your intrinsic motivation (motivation that comes from within, like the desire to create a more equitable world). If you’ve done some earnest introspection about your core purpose, you’ll likely already have a good understanding of what kind of work you’re intrinsically motivated by.
George gives the example of Warren Buffett as a successful business leader who found his ideal role in the business world. He writes that Buffett could have made a lot of money working as a stockbroker, focusing on trading and selling stocks for clients frequently to make a commission on the trades. However, Buffett knew this wasn’t the kind of work he was excited about or what he was best at. Instead, he chose to run his own investment firm, where he could implement his own investment philosophy (investing in companies long term). Running his own investment firm enabled Buffett to tap into both his strengths as an investor and his intrinsic motivation to do work that he enjoys.
In contrast, George warns that if you’re in a role where you’re solely extrinsically motivated (by external rewards like a prestigious title or a high salary), you risk falling into the trap of sacrificing your core purpose and your ethics for material gain. For example, if you’re primarily motivated by receiving praise from your boss (rather than enjoying your work), you might start to sacrifice quality just to maintain high output and keep getting accolades. This pattern could then continue indefinitely, even if it isn’t aligned with your core purpose or values.
George says that ultimately, external rewards will be unfulfilling because they don’t stem from an inner desire like your core purpose does. In addition, when you’re striving for things like money, fame, and power, you tend to make unhealthy comparisons between yourself and others, leading to dissatisfaction no matter how much you achieve. Therefore, George asserts that a desire for external rewards should always be balanced by your core purpose and intrinsic motivations.
Strategy #2: Support Your Team Members
George’s next piece of advice for strong leadership is to enable your team members to do their best work rather than trying to micromanage or force others to do what you want. He argues that this is important because younger generations expect their leaders to give them respect and autonomy over their work. Therefore, adopting this style of leadership will help you attract employees to your organization and advance your core purpose.
To implement this team-oriented style of leadership (what George calls the “I to We” shift), you must build strong relationships with your employees and use feedback and introspection to increase your self-awareness. George says that to strengthen your relationships with team members, you have to be vulnerable and show mutual respect. This gives you more credibility as a leader and establishes the supportive and non-hierarchical dynamic that millennial employees prefer. For example, if you’re providing constructive feedback to a team member about their work habits, you might tell them that you also struggled with some of those same behaviors in the past and let them know that you’ll provide any additional support they might need to improve.
In addition to relationship-building, soliciting feedback is an important way to ensure that you’re supporting your team to the best of your ability. George advises you to process feedback objectively and follow it up with introspection about your behavior and how you can genuinely improve your strategies moving forward. He asserts that feedback is necessary to adapt your leadership style to your colleagues and the circumstances. For example, a person who’s newer in your industry may want more guidance, whereas a veteran employee might prefer to work more independently. Therefore, you may need to have one-on-one conversations to get feedback and understand these individual needs.
Two Actions for Resilient Leadership
In The Way of the SEAL, Mark Divine discusses actions that will help you be a success leader. Additionally, you’ll learn to respond to factors beyond your control because the work world is always changing.
Action 1: Set a Strong, Clear Mission
Divine says that when you start a new business in today’s unpredictable, ever-changing work world, you can mitigate the risk of failure and increase your organization’s resiliency by having a strong, achievable company mission that keeps you and your team focused on your objective. A clear mission makes it easier to determine where to target your resources so you don’t squander them, which helps you understand how to be a great leader and adapt to new changes.
A strong mission is:
- Simple and achievable
- Important to you and your company
- A strong fit for your time, resources, and the talents of your team
- A good return on investment (in other words, the outcome will make the time and money you put in worthwhile)
- Timed well (new and needed in the market now)
- Easy to communicate to your team
Communicate Your Goals Effectively
To lead your business successfully, you have to communicate your mission clearly to every person helping execute it. When you help your team understand your mission and their role in making it happen, you eliminate confusion about who needs to do what. This enables everyone to focus on their job and work together to achieve the big-picture goal.
Divine says the most effective way to communicate your mission is to frame it as a compelling story that’s relatable and easy to understand. For example, to tell the story of a business you’re launching, talk about your big picture idea, the product or service you want to sell, and the path you and your team will take to make it happen. Brief your team on their roles, including specific steps each person will take to execute the mission and what to do if things don’t go according to plan.
Action 2: Embrace and Adapt to Change
Divine says that to thrive as a leader in an ever-evolving landscape, you have to be proactive, not reactive, to be aware of developments on the horizon that could compromise or enhance your work. To do this:
1. Act quickly and decisively. When you act fast in the face of change, you don’t get hung up on things that aren’t working. This also allows you and your team to identify and take advantage of cutting-edge opportunities.
To act quickly and decisively, foster trust with your team and set up standard operating procedures. Building trust encourages healthy risk-taking, problem-solving, and innovation. Standardizing routine parts of work life—like office communication protocols and regular planning meetings―streamlines operations so your team can act fast and confidently tackle new challenges as they arise.
2. Be on the lookout for threats and opportunities. When you’re perpetually attuned to what’s going on around you, you’re less likely to get caught off guard, more aware of opportunities you can take advantage of, and better prepared to predict your competition’s next move—which will help you stay ahead of them and lead successfully.
To practice attuning yourself to your surroundings, consistently pay attention to what’s going on around you when you’re in public spaces. For example, when you’re at the grocery store, scan the room and take note of things that seem out of the ordinary. Are most people moving quickly or slowly? Does anyone stand out for rushing?
Divine recommends that you regularly practice this skill in every space until this heightened state of awareness becomes part of you, then apply it to your business. For example, look at the market around you: Are your competitors doing things differently from normal? Can their actions negatively impact your work or open opportunities for a new path forward?
Be Confident by Changing Your Language
Divine says that building your confidence will help you more effectively navigate a rapidly changing work world and be a stronger, more successful leader. To do this, regularly pay attention to your language and choose positive, active words instead of words that conjure up images and feelings of weakness and uncertainty—which undermines your confidence and others’ confidence in you.
For example, don’t say you’ll “try” to do something, which conveys doubt. Instead, say that you’ll “definitely achieve results.” This instills confidence that you’ll succeed. Practice this regularly to build sustained feelings of confidence and inspire others’ confidence in you.
Let Go of What Doesn’t Work
Divine says that in a VUCA work world, leaders can’t waste time on outdated ideas, plans, or products and services. The moment you realize a plan isn’t working, take a calculated risk and shift to a different plan—even if it’s not fully formulated. If your plan fails, view that failure as a chance to learn. Then, wipe the slate clean early and often to build confidence in your ability to meet new challenges, move forward and innovate more quickly, and outwit competitors who fail to do the same.
To get comfortable shifting gears without a perfect plan:
- Try something different from what you’d normally do.
- If you fail, think about how to apply what you’ve learned from that experience to your next attempt.
- Try again, implementing changes from lessons you’ve learned.
- Repeat this process until you succeed.
Suggestion for Overwhelmed Leaders
The idea of changing your behavior may seem incredibly overwhelming, especially if you decide to immediately jump from one behavioral extreme to another—for instance, from being a rude jerk who makes destructive comments all the time to being a benevolent boss who’s incredibly polite and kind. Making such a huge personality change might seem too difficult to achieve or too daunting to even attempt.
To avoid feeling overwhelmed, Marshall Goldsmith in What Got You Here Won’t Get You There suggests starting the process of change by shifting into behaving neutrally— in a way that’s neither harmful nor “good.” In practice, this means cutting out your bad behavior without instantly trying to replace it with something “better.” For example, you could stop making destructive remarks to your colleagues without immediately switching to making lots of kind remarks.
While ”just” cutting out a bad behavior still takes a lot of work, it requires considerably less effort than ceasing a behavior and introducing a new one all at once. It’s therefore a much less overwhelming prospect.
The one caveat to this option is that it’s not always possible. Some behaviors simply don’t have a “neutral” option—you must either engage in the bad behavior, or switch to its positive equivalent. Take the example of the bad habit of refusing to listen to other people. The only way to overcome this bad behavior is to actively start listening to people. There’s no neutral, in-the-middle alternative action to choose here.
If you find yourself in a situation where you’re feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of transforming your behavior but have no “neutral” option to fall back on, try to remind yourself that while the change ahead of you will be difficult and take a lot of effort, it’ll be worth it in the end. With time and hard work, you will be able to successfully cut out your bad habit and introduce your new, healthier behavior.
Likewise, don’t put pressure on yourself to fully change your behavior overnight. Even if, at first, you only successfully implement your new, healthier behavior once each day, that’s still progress. This is a big transformation you’re making. Permit yourself to take your time with it.
Directions for Empowering Others
A team’s leadership is the key factor that determines whether it performs at its fullest potential and succeeds in meeting its goal. Good leaders enable their team instead of holding it back. They know how to inspire and motivate people, push their capabilities, and empower them to take on responsibilities.
To create a team with strong leadership, John C. Maxwell recommends in The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork that you devote time and energy to developing your team members into leaders. Leadership isn’t a fixed role that belongs to a single person—instead, the role might be better managed by different people depending on the situation. Instead of having the same person make decisions for all tasks and projects, you should delegate leadership to the person with the most experience and capabilities for the task at hand. This allows you to optimize the performance of your team and leverage the unique strengths of your team members.
Tips on Leading With Good Energy
Knowing how to be a good team leader is all about understanding the power of positivity and kindness. When you’re positive and genuinely care about your team, there will be a dramatic improvement in your team’s productivity. Read on for Jon Gordon’s tips about leading a team with great energy from The Energy Bus.
Tip 1: Lead From the Heart
The key to understanding how to be a good team leader is to lead from the heart. The heart is your power center, from which positive leadership flows.
The Institute of HeartMath asserts that your heart communicates your feelings to cells throughout your body via the heart’s electromagnetic field. It also projects this energy beyond your body—up to10 feet away. Your brain has an electromagnetic field too, but your heart’s field is 5,000 times stronger. (Shortform note: The Institute of HeartMath promotes “energy medicine,” which some researchers have termed pseudoscience.)
This means that we’re broadcasting positive or negative energy from our hearts and people are picking up on it. We can sense or feel people’s hearts (their true feelings) and know if they’re being sincere or fake. Similarly, employees tune in to the energy of their leaders.
The word emotion stands for energy in motion; your energy determines your emotional state. Instead of letting negative emotions get a foothold, you need to take control and charge yourself up with positive energy.
When you’re happy and positive, those around you are happy and positive too. Your happiness is a gift to others. Instead, many people try to please others and end up feeling unhappy themselves. It’s better to focus on feeling good and let your happiness spread to others.
Tip 2: Have a Larger Purpose
The final tip for how to be a good team leader is to have a larger purpose.
Purpose is the most important fuel additive for your journey. Knowing your purpose keeps you energized and prevents burnout.
Consider the story about a visit President Lyndon Johnson made to NASA. Johnson is said to have encountered an energetic janitor in a hallway and remarked that the man was the best janitor he’d ever seen. The man replied that he was more than a janitor—by working on the NASA team, he contributed to the moon mission. The janitor was motivated to excel at his job because he felt part of a bigger purpose and mission.
Purpose infuses your everyday life with passion.
Many companies and their employees lack this kind of spirit. Their cultures kill people’s energy and spirit, resulting in low morale, negativity, and poor retention and performance. While big projects can be inspiring, companies need to create lasting energy. Find the bigger purpose before the product launch and let it fuel and continue to carry the team after the launch.
If you want to know more about the power of purpose, consider this story about two airplane design teams. One team was given a mission to build the world’s most advanced airplane and was shown a model of the aircraft. The other team was divided into small groups and each group was given a component to design; the subgroups weren’t given an overall mission or shown a model of the end product. The team with a mission and vision of the airplane worked twice as long and hard and finished in half the time as the other group.
Learn More About Becoming a Great Leader
If you found this article interesting and want to dive even deeper into becoming a great leader, you can read the full guides of the books mentioned here below:
- I Wish Someone Had Told Me… by Dana Perino
- Discover Your True North by Bill George
- The Way of the SEAL by Mark Divine
- What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
- The Leadership Challenge by Barry Posner and James M. Kouzes
- The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork by John C. Maxwell
- The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon
