Spark: How to Lead Yourself and Others to Greater Success

by Angie Morgan

leadership isn’t about authority. It’s about building credible influence with others.

The concept of leadership is not a difficult one to understand. It’s simply about taking care of others and treating them fairly, communicating in a way that lets others know what they must do to be successful, and passing along praise for a job well done.

You don’t have to wait around for someone to create opportunities for you. You can create them yourself.

A certificate or degree doesn’t make you a leader. You make you a leader.

Excellence and high performance happen only when everyone on the team—not just a select few—chooses to lead.

That’s because most people think of leadership as a title, not as a set of behaviors, so they don’t see themselves as leaders capable of applying leadership to their challenges.

At Lead Star, we define a leader as someone who influences outcomes and inspires others.

They were solid individual contributors, but they struggled with figuring out how to let go of doing everything themselves and start leading their teams.

What we learned in the military is that courage isn’t the absence of fear—it’s the ability to take action in the face of fear.

LEADERS AREN’T BORN—THEY’RE MADE

Spark qualities include being credible to others so that they trust you, holding yourself accountable to your challenges, making good decisions when you’re feeling pressure to act, expressing your confidence in clutch moments, and bringing a group of individuals together to form a full and cohesive team.

LEADERS CHALLENGE THEIR INSTINCTS

Cognitive flexibility is commonly described as the ability to switch your thinking in order to solve problems, which we all do really well with the non-people-related challenges we experience.

The first step in solving people problems is recognizing that you don’t have to stay on the well-worn path you’re used to, getting the (unsatisfactory) results you’ve always gotten. You can Spark by purposely choosing to change your approach.

A key second step is demonstrating cognitive discipline: the ability to inhibit an instinctual or habitual reaction and substitute a more effective, less obvious response instead—a Spark response.

So the next time you feel like you’re about to act on your instincts, remember to first “stop and wind the clock” before you do.

IT’S YOUR CHOICE TO BE A LEADER

What are your real strengths? What are your true weaknesses?

“Know yourself and seek self-improvement.”

Johari Window,

The first aspect of self-awareness is “what you know and everyone knows” about you.

The next aspect of self-awareness is “what you know and no one knows” about you.

The next aspect is “what you don’t know and no one knows” about you.

The final aspect of self-awareness is the gold mine: “what you don’t know and everyone else knows” about you.

Without access to your blind spots, it’s difficult for you to improve upon them—and it may be precisely these blind spots that are holding you back from becoming an influential and inspirational leader to others.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ONE’S MINDSET

The Galatea Effect—which has been researched in a variety of scenarios and whose name refers to a Greek myth about an ivory statue that comes to life—suggests that our images, beliefs, and ideas about ourselves have a powerful influence on our behavior.

The more you believe in your values, the more you will become them.

Acknowledging the internal disconnect between values and actions is where true growth takes place.

An important note: In your journey it’s important to reflect on who you can enlist to support you. This point is key. Sparks recognize that no one achieves lasting success on their own. As humans, we crave community. We all want—and can benefit greatly from—connections with people who encourage us to be our best and help us confront our blind spots. Plus, there are limits to any one person’s ability to reason, think bigger, persevere, and demonstrate grace. We need other Sparks around to leverage their collective intelligence and wisdom and apply it in our lives.

Researchers have referred to this as the Morning Morality Effect: we’re better positioned to act ethically earlier in the day than later on.* Maryam Kouchaki, a researcher at Harvard University, has conducted several studies on this effect and concluded that her subjects were 20 to 50 percent more likely to be dishonest in the afternoon than in the morning. She also found that the effect is difficult to avoid regardless of where you are on the ethical scale. We’re all susceptible to unethical behavior.

Schedule critical meetings in the morning, when you have greater energy to make tough decisions. Look at your calendar weeks in advance and block out thirty-minute breaks in your mornings and afternoons to protect your ability to take time to recharge your batteries.

Find a quiet place and dedicate time to reflecting on the values that are most important to you. Identify a list of your top five most important values. Assess your support network—the people you can rely on as you develop your Spark behaviors. Work to ensure that these people stay present in your life. Understand the circumstances in which you have tended to compromise your values. Work to manage your schedule so as to avoid these situations.

Credibility is a critical Spark quality because it contributes to the trust people place in you. And one of the most challenging aspects of credibility is that you really can’t force people to trust you—you have to earn their trust in ways that are meaningful to them (not you).

Understanding and meeting the standards of others Having a very narrow “say-do gap” Communicating your intent and expectations to others Holding others accountable when they fail to meet standards

In this physician’s defense, we often become so focused on the technical and tactical aspects of training when we’re learning our job that we can easily overlook the “people” aspect of our role.

You don’t need to be a manager to create the conditions for initiative to happen. All you need to do when working with your colleagues is share your vision for success and help set clear expectations for deadlines, deliverables, and results.

To start building the feedback habit, your focus needs to be on the other person and how you can help him or her.

So rather than start a sentence with, “Let me tell you why you’re wrong,” you might discover that “Hey, let’s discuss what just happened there” will prompt a more productive dialogue.

And so it bears repeating: a leader is someone who influences outcomes and inspires others. To inspire you have to deliver feedback that doesn’t make people cringe and shrink, but motivates them to grow.

When you offer your feedback, focus on what you’ve observed and what impact it’s had on you. Doing this eliminates hearsay.

Sparks are problem-solvers, not just problem-spotters.

Understand the expectations others have for you—other people often have unspoken standards they’re measuring your performance against. Mind your say-do gap—often we undermine our influence by not following through on the commitments we make. Let others know what’s expected of them—by giving others a clear picture of what success looks like, you’re helping them contribute to the credibility of their team. Have the courage to deliver performance-related feedback to others—when delivered effectively, feedback can be the most valuable thing you do for your colleagues.

I needed to accept responsibility for my own actions and their ramifications. That’s what Sparks do. They serve as role models for others by being accountable for everything they do, good and bad.

The accountability test doesn’t come to you in the moments when you’re prepared for it—you know, those moments when you’re well rested, you’ve studied your notes, and you feel entirely confident that you’re going to pass the test. Nope, the accountability test comes at you when you’re emotionally vulnerable, scared, and confused.

My boss shared later that when you initiate accountability, you inspire trust. It’s trying to cover up your mistakes or shirk responsibility that gets you in trouble—it can even get you kicked out of the Air Force.

To be an accountable Spark: Lead with accountability so that you’re modeling the behavior you expect from others. Seek to recognize and embrace problems. Don’t deny them, ignore them, or wait for them to come to you. The sooner you address problems, the sooner you achieve the results you’re looking for. Work to ensure that the teams you work on allow for mistakes. The best teams discuss problems openly and apply their learnings going forward.

To understand the problems you’d like to address, start examining the challenges you experience, what you can control about them, and how you can proactively address the situation. This exercise helps you understand that when you focus on the actions you can take rather than on what you can’t control, you’re closer to the success you want to realize. Team Accountability: What problems are holding your team back? This focused exercise allows your team to identify the challenges they’re experiencing that are limiting their performance. It also can be used to help teams brainstorm about what they can do to seek and implement solutions.

YOU ARE THE SUM of your decisions.

It starts with thinking about your specific goals, your interests, and the things you’ve always wanted to do—like living overseas, freelancing, or taking on more professional responsibilities.