What's your go-to strategy for leading with intention and confidence?
This iterative model for intential leadership helps break through the clutter so you can move ahead with confidence, especially when we are stuck, overwhelmed, over-thinking, or under-caring.
❓ 1 Assess
Ask: What is important here? What is the challenge here? What’s to learn here?
Get a good understanding of the landscape. This could be:
What’s the landscape of my leadership right now?
What’s the landscape of my peer and executive influence?
What’s the landscape of my organization, my team?
Both quantatitive (numbers, ratings, scores, validated assessments), and qualitative (reflective questions, talking with coach, 360 interviews) could provide great insights at this time.
Once you've assessed the above, identify the North Star. What's most important here to move towards?
👉 2 Align
Ask: What (thoughts, actions, behaviors, people) would align me towards what’s important, to the North Star?
Since you have done step 1 to assess what’s important, the Alignment step is to give yourself an honest, open-eyed view on what the gaps may be, and how you can shift towards where you want to go.
For example, if creating an inclusive and safe work culture is important to you, but you realize you’ve been interrupting more often than listening, then you may identify paying more attention to active listening as something that would align you closer towards building a safe culture.
If you have multiple shifts you need to make, prioritize which to focus on first. Identify which shift would make the greatest impact.
🔥 3 Act
Now. Take action. This is both the easiest and most difficult step.
It’s easy when you skip the first two steps and want to get going with some action without the intentionality of aligning it with what’s important. This creates a perception of busy-ness and activity but not necessarily actual impact or progress.
When done right, it often is a difficult. Why? Because what we’ve identified is likely something we’re not used to doing. It makes us uncomfortable. It makes us feel anxious and stressed. It makes us feel like we’re failing, or doing something badly.
But I have no doubt you’ve done hard things. Create a few “easier” hard things and celebrate those wins. And build on that momentum.
🎯 4+ Iterate
Iterate - learn from your actions, re-align if things have adjusted, and take action.
This is a growth cycle that will keep you developing your leadership - with intention, authenticity, and focus.
How about you? How do you keep your leadership growing with focused intention?
If you're a corporate or business leader ready to create greater strategic impact but feel like you're not moving the needle, let's talk.