If you are in a leadership role, whether in public life or in business, people are watching you and forming an opinion. There isn’t anything you can do about it. It comes with the territory.
Your behaviours are being noticed whether you like it or not. Their effect can be either positive or negative, rarely neutral!
You need to ask yourself: Am I consistent in my behaviours? Does the way I position myself as a colleague, and what I tell people my most deeply held values are, honestly match the way I behave in practice? Do I walk the talk?
At Involvement, where we believe everyone can demonstrate leadership, we ask people to make Role Modelling Commitments to aid their performance. Colleagues commit to demonstrating more of certain behaviours, and sometimes less of others.
We get them to stand back from themselves and recognise in cold light how others see them. To identify what their own brand is about, what makes them special and why they are admired by their team. Then we ask, what might you be doing, probably unconsciously, to undermine those impressions? Call it forced self-awareness.
Give it a try. What are my non-negotiable behaviours..? What behaviours should I avoid..?
