For part two of this series on How to Find Your Voice as a Leader, the topic is Anchoring. When people coach with me and they are struggling with an issue, we constantly go back to their anchors of Vision, Values and Expectations. Anchors are what grounds you and holds you firmly in place when everything else feels unstable.
In order to take control of your leadership, you need to anchor yourself to what you believe in, why you get up everyday to do the work you are doing and what you expect of the people you are leading. We do this by intentionally defining our vision or purpose for our work, the values we will live as we pursue that vision and the expectations we have of ourselves and others in that pursuit.
Vision
Vision reminds your brain where you are going and tells your team the outcome you desire with the work you are doing. You can’t create what you can’t see or haven’t defined. Vision should be relevant to your current role and simple enough to put on a bumper sticker.
To identify your vision, spend some time exploring questions like:
- What is the compelling reason that drives your work?
- What do you want your legacy to be? What do you want your team’s legacy to be?
- What is the outcome you most want to achieve through leadership?
Take all of those thoughts, pull them together and what is your one sentence summary that you could put on a bumper sticker? If you have a vision as a leader or just thought of one, feel free to share it in the chat.
Some of the great examples my clients have come up with are visions such as:
- To maximize the impact of my team.
- To empower others to create organizations that thrive.
- To transform the work environment, one collective thought at a time.
- To infuse the organization with never-ending growth and innovation.
These are not just words on a page and an exercise to check the box because someone educated you on vision in grad school. It’s also not the stale corporate vision that we see so often. When you’ve landed on the right vision, the feeling will be visceral. It won’t be something logical, you just simply know in your head. Instead, you will feel it physically, in your bones, when you speak the words out loud.
I get a lot of people coming to me for coaching that start with the comment “I don’t know my purpose” but what they really haven’t defined is why they are in the role they are. What are they being called to do? Vision helps you understand why you show up to work, even when it’s hard. For those that are working in a large organization, you also want to bring the vision down to the work of your specific organization. What is your role and purpose in the greater scheme of things? Sometimes the organization’s vision is so lofty it’s hard to identify with at a department level. You want something that resonates with the work you and your team are doing.
Values
Values drive the conversations you have around the behavior of your team by defining what is most important. Most people passively screen the world through lenses that hold their beliefs without even knowing what those beliefs are.
For example, I can recall discussing someone who worked for me with a previous boss. He complained that she didn’t move quickly enough (while everyone was rushing around in an anxiety-ridden state, she was totally chill). I felt she was pretty lax with her work, but when I asked her to do something, she got it done and at an acceptable level. So every time we discussed her and my boss expressed his frustration, it felt like a personal attack on her. I wasn’t about to tell her that who she was, wasn’t good enough.
Now, had we defined a team value as “Sense of urgency” and put her behavior in the context of a defined value, it would have taken the conversation from being a personal character flaw to something concrete. How does a sense of urgency show up? She met the deadlines we put on her, but she didn’t put them on herself, independently. She waited for someone to tell her what to do and reacted to situations instead of anticipating them. Defining that as a requirement we held, gives me something to talk about that doesn’t attack her personally. She can still give off a totally chill vibe, yet set deadlines and anticipate issues from that place. With this anchor, we could have a constructive discussion.
The reason I use this example is because most performance issues are actually value conflicts, but as leaders we get so wrapped up in evaluating people’s character that the feedback we give simply isn’t helpful or constructive. When looking at performance after you’ve defined your values, it becomes just math and not personal. It also helps you organize your thoughts bringing an issue from that sense of “I just feeling like something is off” and onto paper with facts. I communicated x as a value and the person has chosen to do y instead.
So take some time to determine your values by answering the following:
- Describe the qualities of your best team members. Why are they the best?
- Describe the qualities of the team members you find most difficult to manage. Why are they so difficult?
- If you had to choose three values to hire and fire team members by, what would they be? Why?
You want to land on no more than five values. Three is even better because rarely do people remember more than that. The values should roll off of your tongue and that of your team members without question or needing a cheat sheet. Choose them intentionally and communicate them widely – over and over. In fact, have your team members help define what it looks like when those values are present.
Truth be told, you are likely communicating values to your organization already, by how you react to challenges, make decisions and prioritize your time and money. Take some time to make sure they are the values you want to communicate.
Expectations
Expectations are our third anchor. They help us define not only the behaviors required for the culture we want, but those required to achieve business results. Some examples of expectations may be to behave professionally, respond to emails or messages within a timely fashion, be available and present during core hours, or complete tasks in your system by the deadline stated. By identifying and communicating these up front, you can avoid confusion or miscommunication down the line. The conversations with your team members become very straightforward.
“I gave you this task to be completed by this date and it’s not complete. That is not acceptable.”
While there are a few other anchors such as roles and job descriptions, these are the three that my clients continue to depend on most frequently.
Where are you in your journey of identifying your vision, values and expectations? I would love to know. Feel free to reach out to me for assistance.