The American author John C. Maxwell was effusive in his bestseller “The 360 Leader”, saying that 99 percent of all leadership occurs not from the top, but from the middle of an organization. That means you don’t need to be the CEO or some manager of the company to lead. Either you should expect to be promoted to start learning it. Actually, this 360 leadership style already exists in practice and you probably know someone like this. Or maybe you are a 360 leader. Continue to check:
What 360 Leadership means?
The company’s hierarchy matters little to the leader when he/she is able to put him/herself in the place of another worker, whether it’s the company’s director, the colleague, the trainee or the helper cleaning. The principle of 360 Leadership is that we should be able to lead from all perspectives at the same time, in every way:
• Leading up, influencing our leaders;
• Leading across, influencing our peers;
• Lead down, influencing all those that somehow work for us.
And how to be a 360 Leader?
Our memory can be ungrateful. Managers forget that they were employees as well as employees forget that they can be the managers of tomorrow. So, ask yourself the following: would you follow the leader you are? Would you be influenced by him/her? First of all, influencing is motivating. And motivating, in turn, more than giving encouragement, is giving motives. Motives to learn to work with each one and for every one at the organization’s levels.
1. Leading up, we relieve the burden of the “head”, showing readiness to fulfill what others might not believe to be his/her role. Leading up is also suggest, with gentleness, improvements to the work environment, since your criticism is not always clear to your supervisors. If you have a solution to uncomplicate, I see that perhaps I already have a leader in front of me.
2. Leading across, we help our day-to-day colleagues to achieve positive results, congratulating them on their victories and counseling when needed. That’s how we achieve mutual respect. Leading across is also having at least one friend at work, somebody you’d invite to do a refresher course, go to a lecture, somebody you’d take to an external event.
3. Leading down, we clearly tell people we trust in their knowledge and skills. This will excite them to prove they are even better not to disappoint you. Leading down is also communicating the larger purpose of the company and thereby motivating others to join it. That’s about walking the halls to wish a good day or call in person to a meeting. That’s about checking if the team knows the place where they work, keep the doors open to receive suggestions and – never forget – give motives before demanding for met goals.
Keep in touch with all your team and allow them to share knowledge with each other. This motivates. Try Runrun.it, the professional project management software that organizes all tasks into lists according to priority that your employees shall follow. Our tool also provides digital status reports of each project and about time, customers and costs. Try it for free: http://runrun.it
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