Leaderology has been honored by Inc. Magazine for our outstanding achievements, financial growth, and innovative ideas. The commitment to our purpose and values has cemented our position (#2094) on the prestigious Inc. 5000 list.
It is one thing to say that your organization is among the top 5000 in the country. It’s another thing entirely to realize that figure represents the top 0.5% of all privately-held businesses in the US.
We know our success has stemmed from embracing our fearless authenticity, not in spite of it.
A daily dose of discretionary effort
A little more intentionality is what it takes to become a more fearlessly authentic leader. A little more leadership courage is what it takes to go from being a bystander to an ally, to even an accomplice. A little more vulnerability is what it takes to not only own our mistakes but learn from them. This attention to enhancing your daily leadership practice is how you change your world for the better.
Below we share three ways you can make intentional tweaks to your daily practice today for a better tomorrow.
1. Prioritize Psychological Safety
Psychological safety invites fearless authenticity to the table. As a business we have made it a priority to ensure psychological safety exists in every interaction and conversation, even the difficult ones. For our team to not hold back on their best thinking, we need to ensure they feel safe to do so.
How are you building psych safety on your team? It's well established that teams with high psychological safety have higher levels of employee engagement, have higher levels of productivity, have greater innovation, have greater adoption of change, and have better financial results. The simple reality is that culturally and individually, we have all been experiencing unprecedented levels of stress and change and- we’ve been in this state for a very long time. Now is the time to double down on your efforts to cultivate a psychologically safe environment.
Begin by fostering a culture that sees mistakes not only as chances for growth, but as integral parts of an ongoing quest for greatness.
Coach Tip: This week, find an opportunity to admit your mistakes. Don't just pull from from yesteryears, but challenge yourself to pull from yesterday. What are the lessons learned?
At the same time, allow a space for intelligent disobedience - invite others to challenge your assumptions. Don’t shy away from genuinely hearing feedback and ideas, even if it runs counter to your own opinions and game plans.
Coach Tip: Use your next team off-site as an opportunity to align the team on the organization's SCOPE. That will help create room for a healthy open dialogue on how the team culture could be improved to support the organization's purpose.
2. Lead with conviction and set an example
At Leaderology we define fearless authenticity as the conviction to act in alignment with your purpose and principles. When you do this consistently you cultivate space for others to do the same.
We are intentional when it comes to our purpose- we want to demonstrate it, and not and not simply declare it. When you engage with a Leaderologist, you'll immediately notice that we firmly uphold, passionately embody, and wholeheartedly embrace our fearless authenticity. Sometimes that means leveraging our platform and our leadership perspective to raise awareness about socio-political issues, even if it poses a genuine risk of losing subscribers, prospects, and clients.
We are in the business of transformation through its leaders. You can't have transformation without conviction and to have conviction you need to be aligned to your purpose and values.
Coach Tip: How do your personal values align with that of the organization? How do you act in alignment with your purpose and values? When was the last time you shared these values with your team? Now might be a good time to share them.
Being BOLD enough to share an opinion that may be seen as unfavorable, being GENUINE enough to enlist the help of others when a project goes awry, being INVESTED enough to ensure the team's success over personal success, and having an eye towards EXCELLENCE are all representations of Leaderology's core values. They are embodied by every member of the team and championed through a peer reward and recognition platform. This system also helps model for new employees what types of behaviors get recognized and can lead to their success.
Coach Tip: Tie in where core values are being modeled and not modeled in your constructive feedback conversations. Champion and celebrate the behaviors you want to see.
3. Embrace diversity and inclusion every single day
Who we are impacts our view of the world and the strategies we use. Because we’re confronted on a regular basis with a variety of situations and changes, it makes sense that it takes a variety of perspectives to confront those challenges in a holistic way.
At Leaderology, we find it necessary to agitate the system and to invite diverse perspectives. We intentionally seek input from cross-functional colleagues, so that we gain their perspective about projects they may not be involved with. This gives us the opportunity to see things we may not have already seen and enroll more members of the organization in the company's success. One of the best questions our CEO asks when a solution comes to us too easily is: "And what if we didn't do it this way?" This is where we really get to expand our field of vision and it almost always leads to better risk mitigation and more innovative solutions.
Embracing diversity is not only about addressing systemic barriers to inclusion and justice, although those aims remain no less crucial. It is also about emphasizing the importance of diverse perspectives, and creating a supportive and inclusive environment where employees of all backgrounds can find a space to collaborate and thrive.
Coach Tip: Expand your field of vision and discover new talent pools, rather than going back to the same industry well. You could start with the leaders of tomorrow.
There's strength in numbers
Leadership is the catalyst that fuels creativity and progress, propelling growth and innovation forward. Some people are born with an innate knack for leadership, while others may need a little extra boost and a toolbox full of development strategies to kickstart their leadership journey. Fundamentally, we believe that anyone can be a great leader provided they’re given the tools and support needed to implement leadership principles practically and sustainably on a daily basis.
Investing a little more intentional effort in cultivating courageous and authentic leaders around you can change the world. Drop us a line and let us help you cultivate a brighter future for your employees and organization.
