This is part two in “How to establish yourself as a leader.” 3 ways that you can establish yourself as a leader if you are not currently a leader, if you are aspiring to be a leader and you want people to start giving you opportunities. This episode is brought to you by my Goal Setting Guide, it is a FREE guide that you can download. The link is at the end of this blog. It is going to help you refine your goals and set them in such a way that they will be achievable and you will actually see success.
Prefer to watch the video, click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYljy4vb5AY
This episode is part two of my series on establishing yourself as a leader. This is especially for aspiring leaders and leaders who are not yet in positions of influence, so here are some of the things that you can do to get people to notice you and give you opportunities in leadership.
If you have not checked out part one make sure you go and check that out where I gave you 3 tips on how to establish yourself as a leader, which was
1. Recognize Your Skills & Work on Developing Them
2. Learn from Others
3. Learn to Believe that you are a Leader even before you become one
Now in part two, we are going to look at another 3 skills in establishing yourself as a leader, so here is the first one,
1. Learn to Step Up
Learn to step up, do not be somebody that sits in the background and does not step up or does not put their hand up to contribute to what your team is doing. If you are somebody that steps up, if you are somebody that volunteers to take on ownership of tasks, what it does is that it shows that you are a team player and it shows that you believe in the cause. It also shows that you believe in what your leaders are doing and it gives you an opportunity to showcase your leadership ability. When you step up or volunteer to do things that are being asked of a team, what will often happen is, you will be scrutinised.
Your leaders will watch you to see how you handle yourself. They will look at the outcomes and if you do it well and if you show yourself to be effective in leading well, that will lead to different opportunities or more and more opportunities, so make sure you put your hand up in those group meetings, put your hand up in the staff meetings. Do not just sit there quietly and count down the time till you clock out. If you want to be just an employee that’s fine but if you want to be a leader you have to be willing to step up and put yourself out there and learn to do the extra work to get yourself noticed.
2. Speak up & Share your Ideas
The second thing is this, speak up, learn to share your ideas when you are in a group situation. When you are problem solving do not keep your ideas to yourself, share them with the group even if you do not know if your ideas are good. By sharing them, what it shows is that you are trying to problem solve, you are trying to be part of the team, you are sharing your knowledge for the benefit of the team and that is a leadership skill. It is not about keeping ideas to yourself so that you get the credit, it is about sharing your ideas so that the whole team benefits from it. So learn to speak up, learn to give your feedback if it is asked for and if people are sharing their ideas do not be critical, be encouraging and share your ideas as well.
3. Learn to Listen to Others
The third thing is this, learn to listen to others. Do not just be somebody that talks, do not be somebody that just gives your ideas but is never willing to listen to other people’s ideas. When somebody is talking to you, learn to practice active listening, focus on them, give eye contact, suppress your need to respond to everything they say with an anecdote of your own experience. You do not need to say everything that comes into your head. Learn to actively engage in what they are saying, give them cues that you are listening, repeat back to them what they are saying so that they know you are listening properly and they know that you are listening effectively.
If you become an effective listener what you will find is that people want to actually listen to you a lot of the time. When people do not want to listen to you it is because you spend more time talking than you do actually listening to others. So it’s really important that you take the time to listen to others as much as you contribute to the discussion.
So these are three little tips that you can use to establish yourself as a leader, if you are looking to get opportunities or establish yourself in an environment where you do not have a leadership position. Firstly, step up, volunteer to do the work that is being asked, volunteer to take on projects, volunteer to take on tasks that may be over and above what you normally do and that gives you an opportunity to be noticed. Be a team player, speak up, share your ideas and make sure that you are engaging in conversation in team meetings and staff meetings so that people know that you are a team player and you have got something to contribute to the team. Lastly, listen up. Do not do all the talking.
Make sure you listen to others when people are sharing their ideas or they are trying to explain something to you. Make sure you actively listen and show them that you can actually hear and not only talk.
These are three things that you can do to be a more established leader and to get people to notice you. I am going to do part three, so look out for that. That will be coming up soon and the best way to get updates on when my part three comes out is just subscribe to our youtube channel and you will always get updates on when I release the videos every week.
I hope that was really helpful for you, don’t forget if you want to learn more about leadership check out our course “Leading for Success” the link will be in the description below.
If you would like to learn more about effectively growing in your leadership, why not check out our FREE Goal setting guide. See below for details.https://leadcommunicategrow.com/free-goal-setting-guide/
5 Steps to Set Goals that Work
Online Leadership Course: https://calmer-classrooms.thinkific.com/courses/leading-for-success
