Switching on Your Leadership Radar
What’s on your leadership radar?
This is also described as self-awareness and social awareness, which are at the core of emotional intelligence (EQ). All of this is critical to understand what impact you are having as a leader.
Your Internal Leadership Radar
When you switch on your internal leadership radar, you become aware of things like how you feel, what you’re thinking, your values, your reactions, and what energizes, stresses and motivates you.
For example, if you are stressed or frustrated and don’t know it, you aren’t able to adjust your behavior, which could negatively impact your surroundings. On the other hand, if you are more aware of your stress and frustration, you can take greater control of your state of mind and how that reflects outward.
By taking control of your own thoughts, feelings, actions and behaviors, your impact on others can become what you want it to be. Do you want your impact to be inspiring, energizing, thought-provoking, collaborative, enlightening, daring or different? Whatever impact you’re going for, engage and take control of your inner world first.
Your External Leadership Radar
To switch on your external leadership radar, you need to observe, listen and explore the world around you to better understand the environment, situations, people, moods, interests and political/social landscape. It’s about tuning into the world around you. Your leadership radar needs to be operational all the time.
What’s on your external leadership radar? What’s going on around you? What do you need to be aware of?
Once your radar is on, you need to understand the system you’re in. In systems thinking, there are two main considerations: the internal system of the organization and the external system, which is everything outside the organization that touches it in some way.
We would add a third system: the “inner system” of yourself.
When interlinked, these three systems show the complete picture of your ripple effect as a leader. By understanding each system, you can consciously choose how to behave, act and communicate to influence and achieve the strategic aim of the organization. You become more intentional about the impact you want to have.
Radar Settings and Their Impacts
When your radar is on, the ripple effect you create is more impactful.
Impact happens on a one-to-one basis with individuals, and on a one-to-many basis with teams and groups.
Negative impact, for example, may be as simple as checking emails on your phone when in a one-to-one situation. How do you think that makes the other person feel? What impact are you having on them? Will they want to go that extra mile for you? And who are they meeting next? How might they affect that person?
Also, imagine that you’re presenting to a room full of people, handing out awards and getting the recipients’ names wrong. Your personal brand will be negatively affected. People will feel that they are not important enough to be remembered, or that you didn’t care enough to pay attention to the details. And because people tend to remember those situations, you will now have to work harder to reclaim some lost credibility and achieve the impact you want.
Positive impact can be as simple as saying thanks to someone who helped. It doesn’t matter how small or large, just taking the time to stop and say thanks can have a huge impact on people. In the busy world that we live in, we can easily forget this important and impactful effort.
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What’s on your leadership radar? Is it switched on, enabling you to fully understand what’s going on around you, as well as how you need to lead and respond to create long-term, sustainable results? You have a strategy for business, so why not have a strategy for impact?