Lessons in Leadership: How to become a more effective leader 

Leadership is about a lot more than just telling people what to do. 

The role of the leader is to motivate, influence and enable their team to achieve their full potential.

But how do leaders pass through that barrier that takes their leadership from good to excellent? 

Ahead of his upcoming Vistage webinar, we caught up with speaker, consultant and expert on human culture & performance Mark Robb to find out more about what makes an effective leader, what their role is in the team and how they can really make an impact on their business’ success. 

Learn all the tips and tricks of effective leadership – register for our Leadership Excellence webinar here.

The leader is the message 

“The way that I describe leadership in my sessions is that the leader is really a condition maker,” Mark says. “So, somebody who’s making it easy for other people to win.” 

Part of that involves removing the obstacles and challenges that might get in their team’s way. But another big part is driving their people’s emotional commitment and getting them invested in the company’s vision. 

“How do you get the vision out of people’s heads and into their hearts?” Mark asks. “That’s really where the leader really kicks in. Getting people emotionally committed to the big ideas and to the direction.”

But how can leaders best communicate their vision and really inspire people to emotionally invest in their message? 

“I mean, it’s a question of what type of communication we’re talking about,” Mark explains. “People often think of communications as what you say. For example, speeches and announcements.”

But leadership goes beyond words, according to Mark. Day-to-day leadership behaviours and role modelling actually communicate more to employees than words can. 

“It’s not just what you say but what you do. Anybody can stand up on stage and give the right messages, write the newsletter, or make the noticeboard. 

“People are looking for congruence between words and deeds. And so communication is best when the leader is the message.” 

Take your team to the next level – sign up for our Leadership Excellent webinar here. 

Measuring effective leadership

So, we know that the leader needs to set an example for employees and enable them to win. But how can they tell how effective their leadership actually is?

Measuring employee engagement is key.

“Engagement stands for people’s emotional commitment,” Mark says. “But it’s a technical term, something that can be measured.”

We might see output metrics like sales, profits and productivity as key indicators of success. But measuring predictive metrics like engagement are equally as important. 

“When leaders do the right things, engagement within an organisation increases, productivity goes up and absenteeism goes down,” Mark says. 

“That will bleed into customer engagement, sales and profit. So, you want a set of predictive metrics as well as outcome metrics.”

Creating a culture of engagement

Why should Vistage members tune into Mark’s webinar on November 9th? 

“The session will present some of the best empirical data out there on thirty-five practical things that leaders can do to get people to that place where they are engaged,” Mark explains. 

Throughout the session, Mark will also cover how leaders can best implement an engagement metric in their business – and how to correlate that with output metrics. 

Thanks to Mark for taking part in this interview.

Sign up for Mark’s upcoming Leadership Excellence webinar here. 

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