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One of the most read Argentine digital newspapers, cites a survey carried out by The Hartford in which 80% of millennials consider themselves leaders but very few can execute their leadership .
If you are one of them, and you are wondering how to improve your ability to influence your collaborators, I want to invite you to read the following lines.
1. Don’t rush to make decisions
It is completely normal and even recommended that you feel that inner urge to change things.
If you are a young leader who was recently anointed as such, the most logical thing would be that you encounter daily issues with which you disagree in the least, having the conviction that only by modifying them will you achieve the goals you are pursuing.
Now, I think one of the main talents of leaders is learning when is the right time to make a decision.
It takes many years of experience to be able to achieve this and, as in other cases, there is no magic recipe or an Excel sheet that will return the precise answer, once the data is loaded.
What I am sure of is that, just as unnecessary delay makes decisions lose weight, rushing decisions could also cause damage that is difficult to repair.
Examples of this could be dismissals or promotions of staff, as well as the modification of a commercial policy installed and adopted by customers. Or also a communication, indoors, of the opening of a new branch that is not yet fully budgeted. Imagine that if you finally decide not to open it, your credibility would be seriously affected.
2. Listen in 360
Pay attention to everyone equally, both internal and external.
To listen in 360 is to have your ears open to all the people who are part of the company, including the oldest, newbies, women, men, lower and higher employees, etc.
Likewise, it is also listening to what they say about us, whether they are buyers of our products or services, as suppliers or simply our family or friends. What do they think of the company? Do you think we are respectable? Are they satisfied with what we offer? Do you feel that we are trustworthy?
3. Always learn
If you recently graduated, don’t think you already know everything.
Be active and receptive not only to formal courses, but also to everything that can add knowledge to you.
Keep in mind that knowledge is often in people, and that is where you must be open enough to ask others without fear about what you do not know. Don’t be afraid to be ignorant. On the contrary, it is wise to assume that we do not have much to learn.
4. Transmits
Even if you are young, you have important things to tell others.
Your experience, ideas, perceptions and convictions can be valuable material for collaborators and peers.
It is not true that only those who comb gray hair acquire a kind of superlative ability to transmit knowledge. Youth also have things to say and it is healthy that you decide to do it, from humility.
Your experience, ideas, perceptions and convictions can be valuable material for collaborators and peers / Image: NeONBRAND via Unsplash
5. Keep your beginner’s mind
Positioning yourself as a child is the attitude that ensures that we are not loaded with prejudices or mental models that prevent us from knowing both tasks, methods and human beings.
It is beautiful to think of yourself as a newcomer , awake, curious and open to what the world invites us to understand.
6. Share
Time, experience and life stories.
Sharing is humanizing, opening up honestly to others, choosing with whom to do it, at what depth and at what time.
Sharing is connecting emotionally with others, going one step further than mere rational coincidence. It is developing, fostering and creating empathy.
7. Copy and paste
Many people carry a kind of mandate on their shoulders that forces them to always be original.
That is superego and instead of propping up our particularity, it crushes us because precisely in the attempt to achieve the greatest difference, we end up doing nothing or even worse, being a bad copy of others.
The idea is that you take the best of those leaders who have inspired you, either directly in a job or that you meet through their works.
Don’t be afraid to copy and paste. It is healthy to take other people’s ideas and then apply them to your reality.
8. Don’t reproduce what hurt you. Consciously or unconsciously
We have all experienced unpleasant situations with some bosses or authority figures such as teachers and professors.
In those cases, the best that can happen is that we process it healthily, being able to incorporate something useful from those experiences, showing us aspects of ourselves that were unknown before, such as tolerance to pressure or resilience itself.
Now, if that does not happen, we are left at the mercy of repeating those behaviors, as active protagonists.
A popular saying in Argentina calls this “making the floor fee pay” when a boss does the same to his collaborators as what they did to him as a way of indoctrinating them or seeking their submission.
Once again, a leader does not need docile people around him, but critical subjects, with desire and will of their own.
9. Take care of your health
Don’t think that your youth gives you invincibility or superpowers.
Enjoy the outdoors, sports and social life and always bear in mind that a healthy brain is only possible if it is inside a healthy body. Without exceptions.
10. Rate
I propose to do it on several levels.
- First, on the staff, rescuing your positive aspects.
- Second, in others, including colleagues and bosses.
- Third, to the organization that hosts you today.
We do not know what could happen tomorrow or if you will continue working there later, but what we can be sure of is that at this moment, valuing the company is also a sign of giving back the opportunity it gives us in the here and now.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/366457