Stephen H Baum Leadership

Another group of questions from the AMA Webcast Q&A focused on breaking out from the pack, such as : “I am not a leader now, how can I stand out so I may be chosen or offered the opportunity to become a leader?”

First, senior leaders — business owners, chief executives and bosses at various levels will tell you that they do not have a surplus of  people who exhibit real leadership.  And, if they themselves are good leaders, they are always scanning the room for stand-outs: self-starters, informal leaders who are collaborative and have the support of others, individuals with “spare capacity (doing their current jobs well with plenty of capacity leftover).” Be seen as one of these and you will break out from the pack. 

Leadership is recognized by others around you. What gets recognized?

It can be thought leadership – someone seen to have good ideas (whether or not related to their position) and the ability to dialogue about them with others and enlist people to put them into practice.  Thought leadership can include ideas proven to work before, contrarian ideas that have a sound logic to support them and the willingness to air them or a point of view that comes from outside in (vs. inside out). All get noticed. Especially if you are already a go-to person among your peers. 

It can be action leadership – volunteering for a supporting role, but informally helping others get organized and take action together. Or volunteering for a leading role in a small project. 

It can be in team-building and morale building around a task for which you already have leadership responsibility for yourself and others, creating a cohesive task project unit. And do not discount doing something “fun” when it is appropriate and tasteful. Scott Sassa set himself apart from the pack by organizing a parade inside of Turner Entertainment to celebrate the success of a new cable network. Ted (Turner) loved it and placed Scott inside his circle of go-to people. 

And if you exhibit these traits without being selfish, self-centered and self-promotional, those up the organization will prize the traits even more . And some of your peers will add to the buzz about your value.

If you are holding back from taking such measures, look in the mirror and ask yourself “why?” Revisit the gain and pain of testing yourself in these leadership roles. Be aware of the culture in which you are operating. Have other people had such opportunities? What is to be learned from them?  

One other thought: opportunities to break out from the pack usually present themselves by serendipity: being on a task force or special projecxt, discovering where to add value beyond your assigned job, your behavior in a training class. And if the opportunities do not present themselves, you can create your own: take your small group up a notch in aspiration and performance, create some way for your people and those in another group to share ideas over pizza. And if the flow of opportunities at work isn’t enough for you, find out which not for profits are of greatest interest to your senior leadership, identify which one you care most about yourself.  Be a volunteer where they say they need help and, once inside the tent, be observant about where leadership is needed. 

In a posting later this week, I will answer a closely related set of questions about setting up your own personal growth program when there is no formal program within the organization (someone asked precisely this question). I particularly like one question in this bucket which came in during the webcast: “On Leadership Fitness:  can you describe what the “weights ” look like?  What should your workout be?