3 Things You Should Know As A New Leader
When you first start your career, and especially when you’re stepping into a management role as a new leader, you’re often given a ton of advice. Sometimes, it’s solicited. Other times, it’s not. Wading through all of the #fakenews can be hard, so we did the heavy lifting for you.
We teamed up with Coaches Avenue to determine three things you should know as you develop your career and leadership potential. These are things you may not have learned in college, but they are sure to bring you to the forefront as the “Most Likely To Succeed.”
1. Understanding your DISC profile
It’s no surprise that everyone in your office probably goes about their work a little differently. Some may steamroll through it, while others are thoughtful and methodical with their approach.
As it turns out, there’s a personality test for that. Introducing DISC, a framework that allows you to see how you communicate, compared to everyone else in your office. Are you more likely to be direct and go by any means to do it? Or do you maximize the people around you to make the most impact?
The DISC test will tell you exactly how you approach your work, while also revealing the best way for you to work with people of other types of DISC profiles.
2. How to identify waste in your work processes
No… we’re not talking about sorting trash versus recycling. We’re talking about the big things, like spending too much time bottlenecking during a process or trying to cut through corporate red tape to get things done.
It’s tough to make change when you’re lower down on the totem pole and don’t get to call the shots, but there is always waste that you can cut out to make your own job run more smoothly. This is based on a process originally coined from manufacturing, but it works in any area of business.
Some of the biggest types of waste in an organization are overproduction and waiting time. If you find your work routine is flaunting a bit too much waste, pull your team together (or rally with yourself!) to determine the best way to cut it out.
3. The importance of intentional leadership
This one’s a toughie, if only because it’s easy to get wrong, and seemingly impossible to get 100% right the first go around. But call us Yoda and believe that there is no try.
Leadership skills are developed over time by witnessing and taking part in a number of various work scenarios. As your team grows and shrinks and as your company fluctuates from one stellar quarter to one that may have been a little less than ideal, you’ll gain that “3-4 years of experience” they’re always talking about when you read through job descriptions.
No matter what your role is in the team, whether it’s as a leader or as a team member, you should always deliberately strive to develop yourself and seek challenges that force you outside your comfort zone. Over time, it will feel a little less uncomfortable, and everyone around you will recognize that there’s “just something different” about you.
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Are you or someone on your team a new leader in need of leadership coaching or would you like to learn more from Coaches Avenue?
Contact Coaches Avenue for a free consultation and 12-week trial for coaching of up to 3 members of your team.
[Editor’s Note: This is a sponsored post by Coaches Avenue, one of our generous Windrose Magazine Kickstarter donors that helped make issue 2 a reality.]
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Hi friends,
Announcement (sounds so formal, doesn’t it?):
It's the end of an era.
I’ve decided that, after nearly 8 years of telling stories of navigating life, this season of Windrose is drawing to a close.