Anyone can be a good leader, but what does it take to be a great leader? Knowing exactly how to step up your leadership game can be challenging if you’re not sure where to focus your energy. Luckily, our guest today knows all the tips and tricks.
We speak with Angela Raub, Chief Executive Officer at fieldXperience, who shares insight into what she considers the defining characteristics of a great leader and how to become one if you’ve fallen short.
Angela covers:
- To lead with or without emotion
- Building teams that look up to their leaders
- Remote Work & fostering generational relationships
- Enabling everyone to be a positive leader
To lead with or without emotion
To be a leader, those who look up to you must have confidence in your ability. So, it’s easy to see why many link showing emotion with weakness — this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Emotions need to be kept in check, yes; but to lock them away so that your team can never see the human side of you is a misstep.
Being upfront and meeting your team where they’re at is infinitely more beneficial in building relationships than acting like a stone wall. Without engagement, employees can start to feel like a number. Imagine three leaders dealing with a crisis:
- Leader 1 deflates the situation and tells everyone to go back to work.
- Leader 2 panics and sends the office into an uproar.
- Leader 3 acknowledges the issue and guides their team towards a solution.
Be Leader 3.
”As leaders, we are responsible to make people better, we are responsible to have fun places to work, and we’re responsible to bring those things through the clarity of the mission and vision at which we lead every day. But it’s gotta be founded on heart.” — Angela Raub
Building teams that look up to their leaders
If a good leader wants to be a great leader, what specific ways can they step up their game? A good place to start — making sure the business plan is clear.
Working with a startup, Angela knows how fast-paced everything can be. If the team collectively trips because the business plan is vague, it can severely interrupt the process. If an interruption does occur, however, it is imperative that the leader step up and admit the mistake. Taking responsibility for the situation helps employees trust you more and speed up the time it takes to pivot and correct — making a positive out of a negative.
“Always being very upfront and honest, even when you don’t have the right answer, I found as a leader, that you actually gain greater respect from your employees. Nobody has all the right answers.” — Angela Raub
In tandem with the fast pace, a startup tends to have passionate and driven employees often going above and beyond the call of duty. Because those employees work long days, it’s important to respect their working hours — employees will always give more this way.
Remote Work & fostering generational relationships
Remote work is new for many workers and with the change comes unexpected realizations: The drive to work was a way to mentally prepare for the day, you relied on the physical interaction of co-workers as your primary way of being social, or maybe now you feel disconnected from the leadership team and are losing focus.
With this understanding, leaders need to step up and go the extra mile for their team.
If the long-term goal is to develop future leaders, companies need to get creative with how they plan to embolden employees. One way to do this is by building cross functional mentoring relationships.
Generational relationships
It’s no surprise that one generation of workforce will think differently than another one. As we shift to more digital, the older generations are having a much tougher time transitioning than employees who grew up with similar technology. It should be a top priority of any great leader to help build the relationship between older and younger generations.
”As the leader, you have the responsibility to manage up and bring the understanding of the climate.” — Angela Raub
Enabling everyone to be a positive leader
For some leaders, they might feel stuck in their ability — that they’ve hit their ceiling, professionally. Angela shares some strategies to help boost any leader and leave their legacy:
- Confidence guardian: Any leader will doubt themselves from time to time when making a tough decision or realizing they’ve made a mistake. Having someone you trust to keep you on track is a great way to avoid a slump.
- Personal advisory board: Who you surround yourself with has a great influence on your overall actions. Take this idea and apply it to your professional team: If you admire someone in the office, build that relationship.
A great leader can never stagnate. When the best interests of the team are at stake, a leader must challenge the status quo and look for opportunities for growth and building trust.
Check out these additional resources mentioned in the episode:
This is based on an episode of the #FlipMyFunnel podcast. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.
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