What you need to know about leadership

Leadership is an amazing experience. It gives you the opportunity to shape and influence an organisation and, perhaps more nobly, to turn a vision and a dream into reality. That said, leadership can be hard, and people often harbour unrealistic expectations about what is involved.

People often ask me if I enjoy being a senior leader in my organisation, and my answer is consistently ‘yes’ but there are things I think we all need to know about leadership – before even becoming a leader. Here is what you need to know about leadership, as told by Florian Bay from Toastmasters International.

It’s all in the detail

The grand vision, the speeches, meetings with colleagues, inspiring and motivating your team, seeing your vision realised; these are the visible parts of leadership. But behind this lies hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours work, often spent discussing tiny details that may not seem important to a casual observer.

In my corporate strategy days, I spent a lot of time looking for first-hand sources of information and double-checking it afterwards. What’s more, a colleague would check my own work once I was done and edits and reworks almost always followed. The process took time and wasn’t always rewarding. However, it was worth it as the result was fantastic documents that our senior leadership team used to drive the business forward.

Information gathering and number-crunching are big parts of strategic leadership. Small details, like how something is worded, can be of great importance when developing organisation-wide policy and protocols. But remember, there is a line between too much detail and not focusing on detail at all. And avoid reinventing the wheel; try to understand what was done before and why, before you make wholesale changes.

Leaders are still learning

We all bring some skills and knowledge to the table – most of which will be useful in some shape or form. For example, if you’re good with numbers, this will help you make a certain decision; if you’re good with people, it will help you bond with your peers and your team; if you’re good at communication, your ideas will gain traction faster than would otherwise be the case.

However, you may not have all the skills that your role requires. In some situations, you’ll have the opportunity to leverage your strengths into super strengths which, in turn, will mitigate your weaknesses. Despite this, it’s likely that at some point you’ll need to step up and embrace new tasks and learn new skills.

It’s also likely that, as part of your leadership journey, you’ll learn a few home truths. For me, the biggest discovery was that I perhaps wasn’t as organised or structured as I thought I was. Structure and organisation matter a lot in leadership, especially when it comes to execution and I’ll touch upon this later in this article.

The physical and emotional costs

For me, one of the most enjoyable aspects of being a senior leader is travelling to meet other people across the UK. These visits are a unique opportunity to soak up knowledge while inspiring others and passing on key messages. But the travelling, being away from home, constantly jumping from train to hotel to train again and burning the midnight oil to prepare for the following day’s presentation can be exhausting.

While the physical cost of leadership can be mitigated with strong personal discipline and good time management, the emotional costs are more difficult to predict. Unintended conflicts, being let down, having to take on extra work to support a colleague – these can all take their toll. Decision-making fatigue is another key problem – sometimes even having to decide what to have for dinner can seem like a decision too far! So, make a commitment to look after yourself – if you allow yourself to get burnt out, you won’t be much use as a leader.

Human relations can be the hardest part of leadership; from disappointing friends to giving difficult feedback. Strong people skills and high emotional intelligence will help, but even this can only do so much. So be prepared for the strains that leadership will inevitably bring.

Be mindful of your attitude

You might be great at communicating with others, generating new ideas, or developing detailed strategies by analysing information – but you’ll be judged more on your attitude towards your role than on your skills.

Most of us are juggling leadership roles with other areas of our life and time is often at a premium – we can feel we don’t have time to deal with certain queries, or perhaps we feel swamped by a ‘problem’ that has landed on our desk. Attitude is about the way you tackle these challenges and constraints; it’s about how you approach your role and take on its responsibilities.

For instance, if you’re somebody that likes to take things easy and finds it hard to be very responsive when communicating, you’ll rapidly need to become more proactive in everything you do. The impact of not responding to a message, missing a deadline or delaying making a decision can be huge. But worse than that, it can impact on people’s belief and trust in you as a leader. If your behaviour demonstrates a poor attitude towards your role, then disillusion and disengagement will follow.

Jumping both feet forward into a new role or situation will definitely help you, regardless of your abilities. Nowadays, mountains of information on any subject are readily available, use these resources to plug any knowledge gap and find out more about your role and your task. Waiting a few months and saying “I am just getting started” will not make a great impression and may impact the quality of your leadership. If you chose to lead, make some commitments to yourself and accept the weight of expectations placed upon you.

So, what next?

Knowing the challenges that being a leader can bring, should you embark on the leadership journey? Only you know the answer to this question. Personally, I don’t regret the decision; the journey has been an eventful one and isn’t even over yet. I’ve grown along the way and become a better person, as a result. Being a leader can be highly rewarding and may even be the best thing you ever do in your professional life.

More on leadership skills and the leadership mistakes to avoid.