Do you have a team at work?
If you are an executive, chances are you have a team who supports you and reports to you.
Do you enjoy leading and serving your team?
Is leading your team the top priority or does it fit somewhere in your day?
If you are confidently successful, the answer is that leading your team is your top priority.
How do I know this?
Because you wouldn’t be an executive if you hadn’t already learned the value of having a team.
And yet, I have to say that the majority of executive leaders are still getting team leadership wrong.
Yes, wrong.
Serving vs. Preserving
What does “wrong” look like?
Said in one sentence, it’s when you start your day firing off emails, giving direction, asking for feedback, and being the center of the work and execution process within your team.
Doing all of this “extra work” takes time, energy, focus, and labor that a person with solid people leadership skills understands.
So ask yourself this, are you doing all of the “extras” to protect yourself or to support your team?
Before you immediately answer that, let me define that question.
When I say “extras” I am talking about getting to work as early as possible, leaving/signing off of the computer as late as possible, working during family time, and essentially sacrificing all parts of yourself for your career.
Now again, before you answer the question, let me clarify one additional point.
When you are doing these “extras,” are you actively talking to a member of your team each time you perform an “extra?” Are you guiding them, explaining the whys, supporting them through a new project, situation, or event . . .
Or . . .
Are you showing up, getting emails answered as soon as possible, and just providing constant direction to your team in order to feel safe and/or “be seen?”
Now answer this last question.
This is the key.
This is how you know if you are a people leader or a self-preservationist.
If you’re answer is, “I do it to feel safe or be seen,” then you’re not serving, you’re preserving.
Serving Means No Stories
Now I’m going to challenge you to stop your brain for a minute here.
Why?
Because I know your brain just went, “Yeah, I do spend the extra time working but I do it because __________ (and your brain fills in this blank.).”
Don’t fill in the blank!
Don’t listen to the story!
The story is justifying why you are being a worker instead of a people leader.
As an executive, your time should be spent functioning equally between all 3 leadership pillars: personal, business, and people.
Yet if the bulk of your “extras” is being spent working, I’m here to help you step out of that old habit, break that old story justifying why you spend it the way you do and help you start to be the people leader you are meant to be.
How?