Am I a better leader?

Back in 2018, I wrote an article that asked the question: “Am I a good leader?”. Leadership is a topic we hear about often – and for a good reason. In business, we exert great effort for fractional improvements in performance – yet, increased focus on leadership quality offers the potential to take monumental leaps forward. An opportunity like that simply cannot be ignored.

Now that it’s been two years since I wrote the article, I want to take a moment to publicly ask myself: “Am I a better leader?” Self-examination – although uncomfortable – is the only way to get better. 

Over the years I discovered a shortcoming in my leadership. I used to feel that crossing the work-life border was something I shouldn’t venture too far into. I held the belief that most people preferred not to share much about their personal life. But I realised this mindset didn’t apply to most Millennials, and in fact, for other generations too.

This realisation led me to get to know my colleagues outside of their work lives better on an appropriate level. After doing so, my work relationships shifted – my colleagues were more open and transparent, and our trust levels increased. A big benefit was the increase in ‘eye-level’ conversations with less experienced colleagues. This open and candid dialogue especially helped when giving and receiving constructive feedback. It’s much easier now to cut straight to the point without offence as we know we have each other’s best interests at heart. This has cultivated more dynamic working relationships and has led to better productivity and a higher quality of output – a win-win!

Especially now, as many of us are working more from home, the delineation of work and life doesn’t seem to work. Work is a part of life and thus getting to know and respect the people we work with fully is so important.

Now, enough about me! What I really want to ask is, how is your leadership? Is it at a standard that you are proud of? Or are there areas that could be better?

If you’ve hit perfection, you can stop reading now (although we may need an offline conversation about this ??).

For the rest of us, what I want to share is a simple leadership model that I learned decades ago that has helped me over the years more than any lecture, book or course – and I hope it will help you.

The beauty of this model is its simplicity: you just have to remember four words, and then check yourself against these areas often.

Direction. Boundaries. Space. Support.

Let me explain.

1. Direction

As leaders, our ultimate role is to bring others along the journey. Logically, setting a clear direction helps with that. Some direction may have a longer-term focus such as Elon Musk’s directive to SpaceX to make humanity multi-planetary. However, most direction will be nearer-term and probably less ambitious, like setting a quarterly sales target.

The right level of direction will vary. For some people, they might have a lot going on in life, and they simply want to be told what to do. Others may only need the broad vision and that is enough. The key to giving direction is to adjust your style of leadership based on relevant context.

When giving direction, be thoughtful, be clear, make it bold and don’t wait. Zig Ziglar summed it up well by saying: “Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have 24-hour days.”

2. Boundaries

After a direction is set, it’s important to provide the boundary conditions to follow while working towards the objective. While growing up, my parents gave me two boundaries to follow: (1) respect myself and others; (2) always aim to be better. This translated into me prioritising eating healthily and exercising and made me work towards getting faster on my swim team.

In a corporate context, some boundaries are no-brainers like a budget, timeline, and resources available to get the job done. Being upfront on these areas from the start will help avoid miscommunications down the road.

Other boundaries should include values and behaviours to adhere to and ‘red lines’ not to cross. In big organisations, much of this will already be defined through value statements and codes of conduct. Success should only be achieved through integrity and never by unethical means – leaders are accountable for this.

A final tip here, make sure that you define no more boundaries than what is absolutely necessary. Don’t keep the leash too tight!

3. Space

Once the direction and boundaries are set, a leader’s job is to get out of the way! It’s counterproductive to over-regulate how the work gets done. Most people find it difficult to control their children so we shouldn’t expect to control individuals and organisations.

The Irish author Charles Handy is well-known for his “Donut Principle”: the relationship between a person’s core role and the space they are given around it. I like to think about leadership similarly. Too little space can lead to feeling micromanaged, and too much space can result in people feeling forgotten.

Finding the right balance of space is the art of the leader, and getting it right is when the magic happens. This sweet spot is where experimentation, risk-taking, and original thinking occurs. It’s the environment where amazing products, business models and ideas are developed. It’s ubiquitous in most every successful start-up you read about.

If you can master it, the reward is great. Throughout my career, I have witnessed some of the most original thinking and brilliant solutions when people are given the right amount of space and autonomy to excel.

4. Support

With direction, boundaries and space set – the final step is providing the right level of support along the way.

The best way leaders can provide support is by focusing on one thing: ‘provide what’s missing’. If someone is feeling down, let them be heard and sympathise with what they’re going through. If someone is underperforming, provide them with motivation and a boost to step up. If someone is lost, provide direction. If someone is stressed, help them figure out how they can rebalance their demands. If everything is smooth, just cheer them on! As a leader, each member of your team will need something different out of each conversation, and your job is to figure it out and provide what’s missing. It’s a simple as that – just common sense.

One last point in the context of support: nothing gives people much more confidence than knowing a leader has their back. Remember this.

To summarise. Direction. Boundaries. Space. Support.

That’s it!

If you can master these for areas of leadership, they will take you a long way. I challenge you to take some time to reflect on your leadership style. Ask others in your inner circle how you’re doing. Dare to improve and consciously decide what kind of leader you want to be.

A young man recently told me that in his view, the greatest challenge in the world is not war, poverty or climate change – it’s being able to feel inspired and bring about positive change. It resonated with me, and I couldn’t agree more! True leadership has the power to change the world.