25 Challenges to Your Assumptions About Leadership

Being a member of an Agile team requires a certain set of interpersonal skills that tip the scales on collaboration, but even more so on leadership. Bringing your talent to the table is not enough. Instead, we ask our product designers and content strategists to consider how they apply their talent. Do you bring your skills with mentorship or dictatorship? Do you build trust or the deliverable first? Do you foster problem-solving or problem-awareness?

Here in the Direct Service & Claims Design Team, we are redefining the meaning of leadership through the following sentiments.

1. Leadership is not about knowing everything.
2. Leadership is not about projecting a self you think they’re looking for.
3. Leadership is not about talking at someone.
4. Leadership is not about dictating what you want.
5. Leadership is not about running ourselves into the ground.
6. Leadership is not about abandoning ship.
7. Leadership is not about assuming you’re right.
8. Leadership is about listening.
9. Leadership is about inviting someone to be a part of what you are working on.
10. Leadership is about practicing self-awareness and experimenting with small changes to connect meaningfully with your team.
11. Leadership is about pursuing feedback about oneself.
12. Leadership is about actively listening to and applying feedback.
13. Leadership is about accepting that the “big picture” may be larger than it appears.
14. Leadership is about empathizing with all perspectives.
15. Leadership is about saying,” no.” If we arrive at burn-out, how can we serve ourselves and our team?
16. Leadership is about having a plan while being prepared to adapt to change wherever necessary.
17. Leadership is about seeking out the context of a situation before creating conclusions.
18. Leadership is about building cumulative trust in one person at a time.
19. Leadership is about acknowledging what you don’t know.
20. Leadership is about embracing failure by confronting a problem when things aren’t going well.
21. Leadership is about exhibiting self-care.
22. Leadership is about empowering others to utilize their abilities and expertise.
23. Leadership is about bringing team members together to help solve a problem, even a problem that may be solely your own.
24. Leadership is about finding the positive angle when all else seems negative.
25. Leadership is about bringing your true self to the table.

These statements are just a handful of the ideas we discuss every day. No list about leadership is ever complete, however, and we want to know how you define leadership within your own team.

How do you coach, mentor, and encourage the growth of your teammates?

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“The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.”  — Steven Spielberg

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*Many thanks to Lou Cimaglia for editing this post.

Learn more about Stacey at StaceyMessier.com