6 Key Tips for Leading by Example

Leading is all about influence. How you present yourself
in a leadership role affects your ability to successfully
leverage authority and motivate others. Do you inspire
people to follow your lead? If not, consider evaluating
your performance and addressing crucial gaps.
Tweaking a few key behaviors can make a huge
difference in how others perceive you. Many people
don’t take this point seriously enough and damage
relationships, reputations and careers in the process. Be
proactive. Here's the deal: Leading can be a rewarding,
yet challenging undertaking. Follow these six tips
to model excellence and gracefully inspire others to
follow your lead:
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1. Establish an impeccable standard of
excellence.
Set high expectations at the outset and raise the bar on
any crucial factors. The best way to establish a standard
is by modeling the expected behavior yourself.
Showcase excellence. When your actions have the
potential to affect everyone around you and the bottom
line, don't dabble in mediocrity. Reflecting excellence is
critical to exercising effective leadership. This is ground
zero for establishing influence.
2. Deliver on results promised.
Able leadership requires an ability to deliver results.
Rhetoric has little value if outcomes are what's
essential. Instead of touting wins from past
performances, focus on capturing tangible gains now.
Harness the power of chunking, a process for organizing
tasks and breaking them down into bite-size pieces to
avoid stress and burnout. Remember to follow up and
follow through, too.
Engage experts if necessary to timely and competently
pull projects forward. In the end, only substance and the
final sum will matter. Excuses won’t.
3. Value people and nurture relationships.
Top-notch people skills are vital to sound leadership.
Develop premium listening, communication and decision-
making skill sets. Demonstrate integrity by being open,
honest and fair.
Your transparency will reap clear rewards. If you treat
people well, most will be encouraged to return the favor.
By elevating the importance of people and relationships,
you enhance your ability to relate to others in an
authentic and meaningful way.
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4. Promote strategic cooperation.
Collaboration is an indispensable component of
leadership as captured in John Donne's line “No man is
an island." This is especially true if you can build high-
performing teams, according to the Harvard Business
Review 's site. Isn’t it fascinating that no matter how
brilliant people are as individuals, they are often far
more effective when working with others?
People often produce higher quality, more efficient work
products when collaborating. Commit to this by actively
embracing opportunities for healthy cooperation. Make
teamwork an attractive aspect of workplace culture.
Less burnout, increased trust among peers and
enhanced interpersonal relationships will result.
5. Resolve conflict quickly and effectively.
Approach conflict proactively, which means the sooner
you resolve things, the better. As a core leadership
competency, conflict resolution is a delicate process that
requires thoughtful intervention. Disagreements naturally
occur. But persistent hostility should not be tolerated.
The bottom line? Conflict gets in the way of everything
else. Thus your ability to quickly and effectively facilitate
resolution will undoubtedly boost your ability to lead.
6. Freely develop and support others.
Professional development is an extraordinary
mechanism for facilitating growth. Demonstrate your
commitment to expanding your reach and your team's
by prioritizing opportunities for enrichment. Allot time
and resources to make the process stress free.
Challenge yourself and your team to overcome
shortcomings at regular intervals throughout the year.
Then acknowledge and reward proactive participation to
build enthusiasm and encourage continued progress.