Your Executive Earthquake: 6 Seismic S.H.I.F.T.S. to Elevate Your Leadership Style

Ready to shake things up?

Leaders and their leadership styles are the foundation of every working culture. In fact, it’s estimated that up to 70% of employee behavior is the result of leadership role modeling, and leadership patterns have huge impacts on long-term worker well-being.

The right leadership styles provide a solid foundation and inspire your teams to perform their very best. The wrong leadership styles never shift into anything solid, making it tough for your team to stand tall and succeed. What’s more, the generational makeup of the average workplace is getting increasingly diverse, which means it’s often hard to even know which sort of style will yield success.

Don’t imagine hitting a specific target. After all, leaders come in all shapes and sizes. Just imagine the most critical areas in which every leader can grow, then make big S.H.I.F.T.S. in those directions.

Leadership S.H.I.F.T.S. affect what you See and what you Hear. They change how you harness Insight, how you Formulate next steps, how you Transform those steps into action, and how you continue your work after you Succeed. After 30+ years of partnering with successful executives from New York to Africa, these are the six seismic S.H.I.F.T.S. I think provide a more firm foundation for almost any leader to elevate what they do.

1. SEE with greater clarity.

My first vision board was a joint project with my wife. We were attending a seminar together, and we were asked to make a vision board for something aspirational. In this case, it was our dream home. Ironically, we found the longed-for avatar of our dream home in a magazine ad for a Toyota Camry. So, we tossed in the new car just for the heck of it and hung the vision board up in our living room. Years later, it was all a reality — the car, too!

Visualization has been recognized as an effective cognitive tool for a long time, but putting that practice into tangible action can be especially powerful. Whether it’s digital or conventional, a vision board means a greater chance at success. 82% of small business owners who use vision boards routinely accomplish goals, and the executives who tap into the potential of putting their visions down “on paper” can see their objectives with greater clarity.

Questions to ask yourself: 

• Are vision boards a part of your leadership routine?
• What is one larger project this month that could benefit from a vision board?

2. HEAR things deeply and patiently. 

For the most part, people aren’t very good listeners. The problem is that 96% of us THINK we are good listeners, so we aren’t really trying to get any better at it. As a leader, you don’t have that luxury.

More than 70% of employees are thought to be affected by poor listening skills, despite the fact that they spend more time listening than almost anything else. This is because listening and active listening are two very different things. Active listening is about making a conscious effort to hear and understand someone else, and it’s this type of listening that is necessary for effective leaders. Active listening from leadership is directly linked to employee satisfaction, and it’s the only means by which conflict can be meaningfully resolved.

Questions to ask yourself: 

• When engaged in conversation with a team member, how do you indicate you’re listening?
• Do you take notes about important information before, after, or during your conversations?

3. Harness INSIGHT at every opportunity.

As leaders, our insight is one of our greatest weapons. It’s what helps us perceive patterns, connect the dots, and generate solutions that go beyond surface-level understanding. That said, if you aren’t constantly on the lookout for where and when you might gain valuable insights, you’re bound to miss something important.

This is why successful leaders are often very reflective by nature, because it gives them a designated time to look for and process insights from the world around them. On top of that, mental reflection has been named one of the key competencies for future leaders, most especially with the increased complexity and diversity of the modern workplace.

Questions to ask yourself: 

• Do you set aside time daily for self-reflection and processing?
• How often are you writing down or typing out insights gleaned from your day?

4. FORMULATE tangible and timely steps to success.

So, let’s say you have a stack of valuable insights on your desk. If you can’t translate these insights into tangible next steps, none of this really matters. Successful leaders keep their steps concrete with designated timeframes and indicators of completion. Deadlines can be very effective, but only if you’re honest about your own expectations, and the final product should be something immediately ready for action.

If your insights as a leader suggest a need for big change, odds are you should go for it. However, the first step in “going for it” is deciding on tangible, timely steps towards the first milestone.

Questions to ask yourself: 

• What are the practical steps needed to complete this task?
• What is the designated time frame for this task, and should it be adjusted?

5. TRANSFORM things through action. 

Newton’s first law of motion states that an object at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. Essentially, your formulated steps are the “objects at rest” in this case. They are full of insight. They are tangible and timely. However, they aren’t going to get transformed into action until you do something about it. Set the first meeting. Schedule the campaign launch. Request a rough draft. No matter what, just keep the ball rolling.

This is called psychological momentum, and it has a big impact on both achievement and continued success. Good ideas should never gather dust at your organization — they should become tangible steps. Next steps should never just sit there on some shelf — they should be transformed into action.

Questions to ask yourself: 

• Is your workplace procedure detailed and visible enough that the “next step” is never unclear?
• Do you ever leave a meeting without scheduling the next one?

6. Don’t stop once you SUCCEED.

So, you’ve succeeded. Now what? If you’re asking that question, you’re already several steps behind.

The best leaders never see success as a terminal goal. There is always another way to grow — always another way to augment that success. For your employees, this means continuing education and professional development, which not only makes your team more competent, but also gets your employees to stick around for the long term. For leaders, this means always having a plan for building on your current success.

Questions to ask yourself:

• Are you encouraging continuing education and professional development?
• Are you employees aware of how to take each task to the next level?

Time for some serious S.H.I.F.T.S. 

To reach your full potential as a leader, you need some seismic S.H.I.F.T.S. to your style. These aren’t about specific goals or even specific strategies. Rather, these are six major tweaks to make to your leadership that might completely change your trajectory for the year. It’s going to shake things up, but you’ll end up on firmer footing in every aspect of your leadership.

Written by Dr. Sam Adeyemi.
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