It is one thing to be a business leader, and it is quite another to be a business leader who makes an impact. Not everyone who rises through the ranks of management is interested in being effective in their roles; many are happy to have as little impact on the teams they oversee as possible. However, if you want to know that your work is making a difference for your company, you might need to devote some time to developing the traits of a high impact leader.
High impact leadership is a new style of business leadership which ensures that leaders are utilizing their limited time and energy to make those around them better, which in turn allows an organization to achieve its goals with greater success. You can learn the typical actions of high impact leaders right here:
1 Investing in Fellow Leaders
Few leaders operate alone. Most likely, you are surrounded by other leaders in your workplace, and investing time and energy into those leaders is an excellent way for you to make an impact. High impact leaders are rarely selfish; most maintain an abundance mindset, which means that they tend to believe that there is plenty of opportunity and success for leaders to share. Instead of depriving fellow leaders of resources and support, you might dedicate a significant portion of your day toward your leaders’ development, which in turn will help your organization grow and thrive.
Some high-impact leaders apply the 80/20 rule to leader investment. The 80/20 rule is a common one in investing, and you might become familiar with it if you expose yourself to high-quality investing education like this private equity course. As applied to leadership, this rule states that you should spend 80 percent of your time with the top 20 percent of your leaders, as the top 20 percent of leaders are often responsible for 80 percent of the results in the organization. By utilizing this strategy, you are optimizing your impact within your company.
2 Developing a Leadership Program
High-impact leaders are not flippant regarding top talent in their organizations. Hardworking employees with passion and talent are exceedingly valuable assets, and the longer you can keep them on the payroll, the more benefit your company will receive. One of the best ways to maintain top talent is to invite them to participate in a leadership program, which helps high-potential employees develop the knowledge and skill to function effectively as leaders. Low-level leaders may also participate in such a program to continue climbing the career ladder and achieve career goals.
Different organizations may prioritize different elements within their leadership program. Mentorship can be valuable, and many high-impact leaders enjoy the opportunity to interact directly with promising workers. Then again, leaders may provide workers opportunities to build on knowledge and skill outside the workplace, with tuition vouchers for courses related to their field — like private equity for workers in the finance sector.
3 Focusing on Strengths
Though leaders are well-positioned to identify the weaknesses of their organization, it is not always productive to focus so intently on what is going wrong. Generally, high-impact leaders tend to pay greater attention to the strengths of their organization with the intention of leveraging those strengths to maximum benefit. Even within themselves, high-impact leaders might identify the strengths that are most impactful in their careers and build upon them with additional education; for example, leaders in the finance industry can benefit from the private equity course mentioned above.
Often, when an individual is in a space that allows them to make the most of their strengths, that individual can become unstoppable. The same principle applies to a company as a whole. Thus, you might try to reframe your outlook and focus on what your business does well, so you might develop a strategy that can capitalize more effectively on those strengths.
4 Personalizing Treatment
No two people are exactly alike, even within the same organization, the same department, or the same collaborative team. Knowing this, high-impact leaders strive to treat everyone around them with the specialized care and attention they deserve. This helps employees feel seen and heard by their leaders, which increases their morale and loyalty, decreasing burnout, turnover, and low productivity.
What’s more, paying closer attention to individual workers allows you to identify the characteristics you want to see in your leaders. For example, workers who engage in education that grows their knowledge and skill in relevant areas may be of more value to the organization and thus worthy of greater investment from leaders. Showing preferential treatment, like invitations to leadership programs or offers of mentorship, to certain employees tells everyone in your organization what you value in your workforce, and it could result in a shift in behavior to your benefit.
5 Offering More Responsibility
Denying a hard workers sufficient responsibility to keep them engaged and occupied is a guaranteed way to send them out the door. High-impact leaders tend to keep their plates full, and they try to ensure that every leader and worker beneath them also has a reasonable amount of responsibility to keep them active. However, before you start pushing more and more tasks onto your workforce, you might ask employees if they would appreciate opportunities for greater responsibility. Then, you can be certain that you are challenging the workers who crave the chance to show their skill and ability and not overwhelming the workers already struggling to get by.
You can become a high-impact leader in your organization by committing yourself to lead in a way that influences greater success. The above four actions are some of the simplest and best ways for you to become a high-impact leader today.
