Deliberate Leadership

Once we’ve charted the course for our organization and we’ve studied strategic leadership examples we can apply personally, we need to become very deliberate in how we lead our teams so we can reach the destination we’ve set our sights on! This certainly applies to how we approach the overall goals for our organization, but it also applies to how we help each person on our teams understand the role they play in reaching the daily goals that build to those overall goals. And just as importantly, this spills over into every aspect of how we live!

Let me make something very clear though before you tune me out, thinking that this is all just too much… In his 2015 book, Intentional Living, John Maxwell shares two states in the first few pages that really helped me keep this in perspective. First he shares, “To be significant, all you have to do is make a difference with others wherever you are, with whatever you have, day by day.” Then he goes on to say that “when you intentionally use your everyday life to bring about positive change in the lives of others, you begin to live a life that matters.”

OK Wes, that’s all fine and dandy but how do we make sure the rubber really meets the road? That idea of doing what we can where we can is good, but is it really enough to translate into the deliberate leadership we’ll need to guide our teams where we need them to go?

Let’s start by defining deliberate leadership because it’s far more than just shouting commands every time we’re in front of a group…

An article I found on HR.com describes deliberate leadership as “being self-aware enough that you can be-purposefully wise, diplomatic, and intentional with competence, embracing the values (and behaviors) of accountability, reliability, and responsibility.” Since I just shared an entire lesson in our Leading At The Next Level program on how critical self-awareness is as a prerequisite to leading our teams effectively, I won’t rehash that again here. (If you don’t have access to the 85+ lessons that are now in that program, for whatever reason, you can use this link to get a 14 Day Trial for just $1.) I’ll summarize the message though: we CAN’T lead effectively without developing self-awareness!

Let’s be honest though, the rest of that description can still leave us scratching our heads as to exactly what we need to take action on… Thankfully, the article went on to provide more clarity:

“Deliberate Leaders lead by personally modeling the behaviors or ways of thinking that they desire while encouraging others to courageously take the initiative to be independent in their reasoning and in doing so, transfer ownership and responsibility to others. Deliberate Leaders are teachers, mentors, and role models – and they accomplish the majority of their results through the power of influence, not authority.”

“Modeling the behaviors” and “results through the power of influence, not authority” grabbed my attention! Without those key steps, anything we’re being deliberate about likely isn’t leadership… But even when we are personally modeling the type of behaviors we need to be duplicated by our team members, the specific action steps we need them to be taking are very seldom the exact same things we’re responsible for doing on a daily basis. This is where we have to be just as deliberate about making sure each team member is as clear about how their responsibilities support the organizational goals as we are about how ours do - and we’ll pick up there next time!