How to become a leader of influence not one with just a title

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Leadership is not about a designation. It’s about impact, influence and inspiration. Impact involves getting results, Influence is about spreading the passion you have for your work, and you have to inspire team-mates and customers.  Question, how would it be like if you increased your influence over the people you lead, customers, children, spouse and your community.

I suppose you are currently a leader and you have this big position. However, have you ever thought of the possibility that people are following you because of the title?  I mean, you are the boss with this big title.

I’ll let you in on a secret…your position won’t make you a leader. However, if you are a good leader you can make the position. Check this out……

When people follow you for your position, they’ll give you the least amount of their energy and effort. Naturally, people don’t want to follow people because they have to follow people.

Example; By 4:30 pm, your employees start clearing their desks and moving stuff out of their way because, it’s only 30 minutes to the highlight of the day when they get to leave the office.

At 4:45 pm, they leave their desks to say bye, bye to their fellow employees…watch this. All this is happening on company time.

4:50 pm, they go to the restrooms for a loo break.

4:55 pm, they are changing their shoes

By 5:00 pm, everybody is gone. The parking lot is almost empty. You wonder, how people could leave a building so fast without a fire alarm going out.

Caution: When you see this, never wonder why you are not getting the best out of your people. This is because your people are following you because you have a title. Do you want to be a leader of influence? Check this out;

Learn to connect with your people relationally.

They should like you and you should like them. Your people should follow you because you are a supervisor/manager/CEO that they like. I am amazed by people who have leadership responsibilities, but they are not likeable.  Where their People don’t like or even care about them.

Well, what I can say is, it’s tough to be in a people business and people don’t like you. John Maxwell says, relationships with people are the foundation of leadership. And the beauty is, you build your leadership off relationships because leadership is influence. If you want to grow as a leader, you’ve got to grow beyond your position.

Production- results

This is where you are starting to bring home the bacon. You are more effective as a leader because you produce. The greatest motivational principle in the world is; people do what people see.

Too many leaders are like travel agents. They are sending people where they have never been before. Like tour guides. As a leader, you attract who you are, not who you want. Who you are as a leader is who you attract on your team.

When you start to produce/develop, you begin to get momentum and momentum is a leader’s best friend. When you have momentum, it’s easier to grow and to lead. Managers solve problems while leaders try to create momentum. Momentum is a problem solver.

People development level.

Having people in an organization is one of your greatest assets as a leader. So, begin to commit yourself to developing these people. Because, you grow a company by growing people. When you grow them, they increase their capacity. When you increase their capacity, they begin to increase the capacity of what you can do and accomplish as a company or department.

The key to developing good people is in recruitment. The better person you bring into the door the higher the odds you can do well with them. 80% of your success of equipping people to be successful is in the front door and who you bring in. Unless you have a clear picture of what you are looking for, you will not know when you see it.

Well, successful people have always positioned themselves well. When you see a successful person, they are successful because what they have done is, they found their strength, they found their niche and they stay right in that sweet spot and they just work that sweet spot.

Successful people have discovered what they are good at. Successful leaders discover what other people are good at. Successful people position themselves well. Successful leaders position other people well.

The leader is always looking at the people, observing, watching. No matter how talented you are, if you are out of position, you will never reach your potential. It’s key to get positionally correct. It’s key to get your people in the right position.

Stay awesome.