We created Learning to Lead to invest in active, intentional conversations about what it means to be a leader, and how to continue to learn and grow in your leadership journey.
Often we share experiences and stories acknowledging that leadership training can be lacking in a lot of companies. It’s this lacking that made this week’s Learning to Lead live discussion so important.
Alexis Stern joined us live on clubhouse to share active practices in redefining and developing leadership starting with yourself and extending to your team and company. I highly recommend you listen to the discussion, but here are a few takeaways you can use to reflect on your leadership journey.
Why bother with leadership development? Defining leadership for yourself enables you to:
Ensure your values-aligned with your work and position
Clarify what your peers and employees can expect from you and what success means
Support intentionality around your own learning and development
Help you as a leader navigate difficult issues and progress
Enable clear and measurable feedback
Provide consistency
Create your own legacy
How do you define yourself as a leader? Start with identifying characteristics and trends:
Brainstorm how you would define yourself as a leader, and take the time you need to refine, even 2-3 weeks
Gather input from people who know you as a leader, even from past positions or teams. Ask:
What are the three words that come to mind when you think of my leadership?
Where might I have room to grow? (What do you suggest I had done differently?)
Refine the definition to 4-5 characteristics and spell out what it meant to embody each characteristic initially and add to the list over time.
These characteristics can be used to evaluate scenarios, and most importantly, something you can share broadly as you define what success looks like, and builds leaders on your team
How do you build your leadership legacy? In order to define your leadership legacy, start with asking these questions:
What is the company’s definition of leadership?
What are the company’s priorities for its leaders? How are those priorities evaluated?
How does the company develop leaders?
How does the company evaluate its leadership development?
How does the company’s vision/mission align with my leadership definition?
Leadership development is hard work. It requires us to start with becoming first self-aware of who we are and how we are perceived and then doing the work to get clear on who we want to be as a leader and our legacy for our teams and organizations.
This is a big topic and we will bring back the second half of the conversation at a future date.
“You don’t have to see the whole staricase, just take the first step.” - Martin Luther King
Listen to the Full Replay
We are on break! Next weekend Learning to Lead Live event will be on break returning live on Saturday, August 20 @ 9:30 am PT. The topic will be shared on Wednesday (August 17) so be sure to subscribe for updates and reminders!
Resources
Anyone Can Learn to Be a Better Leader: Occupying a leadership position is not the same thing as leading. To lead, you must be able to connect, motivate, and inspire a sense of ownership of shared objectives.
Why Leadership Training Fails—and What to Do About It: Companies spend billions on programs that don’t pay off. Here’s how to fix that.
INBOUND 2022 - September 6th - 9th, 2022: INBOUND is an annual event, powered by HubSpot, that unites thought leaders from over 161 countries across marketing, sales, customer success, and revenue operations.
Tech Up For Women Conference San Diego - October 6, 2022:
Tech Up for Women believes tech knowledge is critical for every career journey. Join them for a one-day event to advance yourself through fast-moving topics to embrace new ideas and innovation.
Ted Women Online Event - October 24-28, 2022: An online festival offering interviews with leading women on change, on work, on rights, on joy and on the future.
Newsletters I read daily to stay informed and get inspired: The Hustle, Morning Brew, Seth Godin’s Blog, Atlas Obscura, Oprah Daily, Newsette
Networking & Job Openings
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