Balancing Firmness and Kindness: Effective Leadership
Leadership isn't just about making decisions, giving orders or getting the tasks completed. It's about modeling, inspiring, guiding, and nurturing your team while maintaining a clear direction. The key? Striking a balance between firmness and kindness. Let's explore how you can develop this crucial skill in your workplace or school.
Invest in yourself. Enroll in a course on empowering people in the workplace. This isn't just about ticking a box; it's about building valuable insights that will shape your leadership style.
Find yourself an external coach or a mentor. This should be someone outside your organization who can offer an unbiased perspective. Meet with them weekly to discuss your challenges and receive guidance. Carey, a marketing team lead, found that his coach helped them identify blind spots in their communication style. With this new awareness, they were able to resolve long standing conflicts within their team. Isn’t it true that others can point out things we can’t see due to proximity and beliefs we hold?
Take the Gallup Strengths Finder Top 5 assessment. It's a small investment that can yield big returns. Joy, a department head at a state’s ECE mentor program, discovered her top strength was "Individualization." She offered this approach to each team member, resulting in higher engagement and productivity. When folks knew their strengths they were able to use these strengths to overcome challenges.
As you get going on this journey of leading, keep a few things in mind. Make sure your external coach is experienced and trustworthy. Implement the feedback you receive as knowledge without action is just information, and remember, the goal is balance. Being too critical can demotivate your team, but being too lenient can lead to a lack of direction. Being able to manage the situation that is respectful to yourself, others and the situation is being both kind and firm, a term we use in Positive Discipline.
To make the most of this process, take notes during your training sessions and meetings. Set specific goals for your growth as a leader. Maybe you want to improve how you deliver constructive criticism or how you celebrate team successes. Regularly assess your progress and be willing to adjust your approach. Anything new takes a ton of practice and self awareness.
Developing firmness and kindness as a leader is an ongoing process. It requires self reflection, learning, and practice. But the rewards will be a more engaged team, a positive work environment, and better results are well worth the effort. So, are you ready to take your leadership skills to the next level? This blog is based on a podcast recorded with Dina Emser. Please watch the full podcast on Jagged Edge with Yogi Patel podcast on Spotify and Apple podcast channels or watch the podcast on YouTube.
