Article 16: Ten (10) Ways To Win At Shaping Leaders

In our previous blog, I discussed seven ways to lose in the 5th Phase Of Leadership (POL), Shaping Leaders. In this blog, I will share 10 ways Purposeful Accountable Leaders (PALs) win at the 5th POL and continue their leadership journey. The true test of any leader is not the product or results they produce. To tell if a leader is successful, you only need to look at the leaders they have created. At this point in your leadership journey, you are etching your legacy with each action you take and the future leaders you are developing. To reach the next phase of leadership, you must create better leaders that choose hard rights over easy wrongs. Leaders do the right thing regardless of who is watching simply because it is the right thing to do.

To reach the upper levels of leadership that create elite organizations, leaders must transition from producers to developers.

-John C. Maxwell-Ken Blanchard

Pareto Principle

Purposeful Accountable Leaders (PALs) invest personal time with their team and are intentional with who they choose to invest in. The Pareto Principle targets and develops the top 20% of your workforce to become tomorrow's leaders. The Pareto Principle was created by Dr. Joseph Jaron in the 1940s and states that 20% of a system, organization, investment, or team will produce 80% of the results. A fact of leadership is that investing authentically with everyone on your team is impossible. PALs understand this fact, look for the top 20%, and begin relentlessly sharing their wisdom. Investing your energy with top performers means multiplying your ability to inspire and influence others. Think of it like this. If a person throws a pebble into a pond, the ripples are small and can be easily missed. But when others with shared values work towards a shared purpose, casting stones, it forces a response. Focusing to invest on the top 20% is not selfish. Instead, it is selfless because your actions will begin to resonate in demand a reaction from everyone on the team and outside the organization. PALs are intentional with their time and who they invest in.

Pareto Principle

It takes courage to invest intentionally with others. A cold hard fact of leadership is you can not be everything to everyone at all times. Choose how you spend your time.

Create Engagement

Purposeful Accountable Leaders (PALs) focus on the process, not the results. Leaders must develop systems to engage their teams often. A recurring theme with my leadership coaching is to focus on the process, not the outcomes. All great organizations do one thing exceptionally, and that is deliberate engagement. To forge PALs, you must create an environment where interaction with the team is routine and purposeful. How does your organization meet, and what are the outcomes when they do? As a leader, you are the shepherd on the journey and chart the course for your team. Leaders must be engaged, collaborative, and intentional, but most importantly, create deliberate time to think. When you create purposeful engagement and allow others to present ideas openly regardless of rank or title, innovation, and productivity increase. PALs create an environment that rewards innovation, ultimately allowing top performers to rise. Below are some tips I have used in previous leadership positions to elicit feedback.

1. One-on-one quarterly discussions

2. Mentor sessions

3. Routine counseling

4. After-action reviews

5. Thinking time sessions

6. Leadership open hours

7. Routine meetings

Deliberate Tasking

Purposeful Accountable Leaders (PALs) do not dump responsibility on others. Your job as a Leader is to empower your team to the point it becomes uncomfortable. Enabling your organization allows team members to take ownership of tasks. If a leader can consistently rescue their team when confronted with challenging problems, there can be no accountability. As a leader, you must challenge your team by assigning tasks based on strength and skill. However, exercise caution when delegating tasks. Not all tasks are equal, and not all team members will be successful with given tasks. PALs align tasks to individuals who can stretch and be successful. When a task is handed out, ask yourself if this is a task you can complete. If yes, ask yourself if my time finishing this task is best for the organization or if someone on the team can do an equal job and grow in the process. Remember, as a leader, you're not neglecting your responsibilities and assigning tasks to members of the organization because you simply do not want to do the job. You give tasks that stretch your team and foster mission command to grow. PALs empower others by aligning challenging assignments with talent.

Theodore Roosevelt

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

Be Authentic

Purposeful Accountable Leaders (PALs) are authentic and lead with purpose. You must lead enthusiastically in all areas of your personal and professional life. By living a life full of confidence, leaders inspire others around them to take action. It's easy to tell if a leader is authentic because their actions align with their words. We all have leaders that preach one thing but do the opposite once no one is watching. To share your authentic self, you must reflect on who you are and who you choose to be as a leader. If a leader simply mirrors another's words, it becomes easy to spot inauthenticity. At this point in your leadership journey, you must understand your core values and House Of Leadership (HOL). Once known, leaders can create shared values that center around a shared purpose with their organization. PALs are authentic because they are confident in who they are and lead with purpose.

Transformational Thinking

Purposeful Accountable Leaders (PALs) can think in a transformational way. To begin thinking transformationally, it starts with your mindset. You must identify as the person at achieves the results you are working toward. If you want to be a successful leader in your company, you must think that you will be successful. Once you've developed the mindset, focus on mastering the performance and the process to get your team to the next point. Transitional leaders are results-driven, whereas transformational leaders focus on performance and strategy to get there.

There are three layers of the transformational thinking process. The first layer is the inter-core, and that is your mindset. You must believe wholeheartedly you will achieve success and find the processes to match your passion. Second, focus on the performance and establish the systems that will get you to the results. If you are focused on routinely performing and optimizing systems, results will come naturally and often much quicker. Finally, the third layer is the outcome. The results will speak for themselves once you have shifted your mindset and optimized your systems. PALs are not focused on outcomes. Instead, they are concentrated on identity, performance, then results.

Transformational Thinking

Mindset helps us determine the process, process drive performance, consistent performance determines our outcomes.

Understanding Your Team

Purposeful Accountable Leaders (PALs) spend the time upfront selecting the right team members for the organization. The inconvenient truth of leadership is not everyone on your team will make it to the third, fourth, or fifth phase of leadership. There are five types of team members in any organization. Those five types are shooting stars, rock stars, high performers, performers, and clockwatchers. The leader must focus on identifying the top 20% of the team and investing their wisdom. When you shift your perspective as a leader and begin to train team members with the mindset to replace you, I guarantee you will make better decisions. A way to categorize your team is the 20/60/20 rule. The rule states your top performers will be in the 20%, whereas your performers will fall in the middle 60%, and your bottom 20% are those just getting by. However, apply caution to this rule because each member has a personal life. Just because someone is in the 60% does not prevent them from entering the top 20% in the future. PALs invest in the top 20% of the organization with the mindset they are training others to replace them.

Routine Accountabiltiy Discipline (RAD)

Purposeful Accountable Leaders (PALs) are routine in their actions, hold themselves and others accountable, and remain disciplined once times are tough. To move mountains, an organization only needs three values. First, any habit or practice must become a routine. Without routine, there can be no forward momentum. Leaders need to take consistent action to move in the right direction. Second, to remain constant, we all need accountability. I like to look for accountability trees. An accountability tree is a system or person that provides shade when the spotlight becomes overwhelming and a firm foundation when times are tough. Third, it comes down to discipline and your ability to push beyond the noise telling you to quit. Discipline is learned in life's teachable moments and fueled by passion and purpose. Discipline is possible by having a clear vision of where you are going. Organizations that display RAD have shared values and purpose. At the same time, they clearly know where they are going because the leader has charted the course. PALs understand to move mountains and create extraordinary results; they must be RAD.

Aristole

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Constructive Candor

Purposeful Accountable Leaders (PALs) focus on creating a culture that rewards constructive candor. Leaders understand that culture starts at the top of the mountain and flows to every aspect of the organization. To achieve a professional culture, leaders need to practice constructive candor. Constructive candor is the leader's ability to challenge others positively to create innovative solutions. There are two essential elements of constructive candor before encouraging this practice in the organization. First, before challenging someone's position, provide praise. If leaders consistently shoot down and humiliate team members, their walls will quickly go up. Once they realize sharing ideas results in belittlement, they will stop sharing, which erodes trust. Second, you must directly challenge them privately when possible. If someone on your team has a position entirely out of scope, pull them aside and provide clear left and right limits. Here is an example. Jamie, that is an interesting idea you presented. Please come to my office when you're available to discuss it further. Versus, Jamie, that idea is stupid, and we are not doing it! PALs understand that building a winning culture requires constructive candor and a team!

Weaponize Your Team

Purposeful Accountable Leaders (PALs) give their teams the tools to win the fight. I like to think leaders are similar to lakes, while their team members are wells. Your knowledge should be a foot deep in a mile wide, whereas your team members should be a mile deep in a foot wide. Your job is to ensure the team has the right tools to effectively win in battle. Leaders that are lakes have a wide range of tools at their disposal but are not expected to be subject matter experts. The leader's ability to understand the tools at their disposal is critical to allow the team to use them to achieve the desired effects. Once you know the weapons at your disposal, find the right people to train and implement them. When you align talent with resources, you amplify your ability to achieve the vision. PALs align resources with the right team members and provide guidance while the team executes the mission.

Create White Space

Purposeful Accountable Leaders (PALs) understand creating white space is powerful for innovation and collaboration. By giving your team time to think, you're mitigating risk by solving current and future issues. Junior leaders will never develop to their full potential unless your organization values thinking time. There's a difference between being proactive and productive. Productive organizations focus on the 50-meter targets and never gain momentum because their vision is limited. Proactive organizations are not just focused on the 50-meter targets; they are looking into the future and identifying areas that will become present issues.

Thinking is the best way for junior leaders to shift their mindset from tactical to operational decisions. If you can foster thinking within your organization from an aerial perspective, it forces individuals to view the whole problem, not just the tactical decisions. Your goal is to mentor junior leaders who can delegate authority and empower others to perform the work. Unless you force them to think differently, junior leaders will believe their success depends on the individual work they accomplish. PALs create white space for their organization to think and, as a result, develop team members to become tomorrow's leaders.

Final Thoughts

Shaping tomorrow's leaders requires you to prioritize organizational mentorship and coaching. No one will take on the challenge unless you are willing to create time and invest in others. The true test of leadership is not the result we achieve but the leaders we build once leaving the organization. Part of investing in others is understanding who to invest in. You must have a realistic outlook on who you choose to invest your time with. Not everyone in the organization has the potential to become an extraordinary leader. In addition, you do not have the time to authentically mentor and coach everyone on your team. By fostering constructive candor and creating engagements with your team, you will naturally identify individuals with unique attributes to thrive as a leader. Seniority and titles do not make great leaders. PALs are humble, passionate about learning, and have a burning desire to serve others.

After Action Review

1. How do you deliberately engage with your team?

2. In what ways do you achieve white space on your team's calendar?

3. How do you know who is in the top 20% of your organization?

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My Mission: I will end toxic leadership practices by equipping leaders with transformational leadership skills. 

Together, we will impact 1 MILLION lives!!!

Every day is a gift, don't waste yours!

Joshua K. McMillion | Founder MLC | Founder MLC

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