As you reflect on the upsides, downsides, best behaviors, and beliefs related to the Permission level of leadership, use the following guidelines to help you grow as a leader:
Be Sure You Have the Right Attitude toward People: The key issue when it comes to the Permission level of leadership is how much you like people and how much they like you. And here’s the good news. You can control how much you like people, and in general, if you genuinely like people, they will find you to be likable. This may seem too simplistic, but make a decision to like everyone from today forward—even if they don’t like you. Write out that intention, then sign and date it. If you need to, keep it in front of you as a daily reminder to make people a priority.
Connect with Yourself: To become someone who is good at building relationships with others, you must become the kind of person you would want to spend time with. Using the five components listed in the chapter for connecting with yourself, put yourself on a growth plan that will help you to win the following:
Self-Awareness— know your personality type, temperament, talents, strengths, and weaknesses.
Self Image— deal with any personal issues you may have so that you can think of yourself in a positive way.
Self-Honesty— look at yourself realistically and decide to face reality, no matter how much it may hurt.
Self-Improvement— make a commitment to grow in your ability to develop relationships.
Self-Responsibility— acknowledge that you are responsible for your own actions and attitudes.
Understand Where You’re Coming From: Are you a naturally relational person who tends to put people ahead of productivity? Or are you an achiever who tends to put productivity ahead of people? You must recognize which you are, and learn to win both relationships and results.
Express Value for Each Person on Your Team: Take some time and come up with positive things that you can honestly say about each person on your team. Then take the time during the next week to tell each person at least one positive thing about themselves.
Evaluate Where You Are with Your Team: Write a list with the names of the people on your team. Now for each, determine how well you know them by answering the following questions (which come from materials the Eli Lilly corporation developed from the 5 Levels of Leadership):
What three nonbusiness things do you know about this person?
What does this person value?
What are this person’s top three concerns?
What does this person want or hope for in life?
If you are unable to answer these questions for someone on your team, then you need to spend more time getting to know that person. Set aside time this week to get to know him or her better.
Accept the Whole Person As a Part of Leading: If you want to be a good leader, you don’t get to use people’s time and skills while ignoring or neglecting the rest of them as individuals. That’s not fair or right. Learn to accept responsibility for helping people and dealing with the messy side of leadership, or step down and get out of leading (without standing on the sidelines and criticizing the way other people lead).
Make Fun a Goal: One of the best ways for goal-oriented individuals to develop a more people-oriented style of leadership is to try to make the workplace more fun. If you’re more task-oriented than people-oriented, then make fun a goal on your to-do list. That will make it more palatable for you while at the same time making you more likable.
Give People Your Undivided Attention: Many people in the workplace today feel dehumanized and demoralized. They believe that the leaders and organizations they work for don’t care about them as people. To counter that, when you engage with people, pay attention and really listen. Few things communicate that you care for people better than giving them your undivided attention. And it doesn’t cost you anything but time.
Become Your Team’s Encourager-in-Chief: People are naturally attracted to people who give them confidence and make them feel good about themselves. You can be a leader who does that if you’re willing to become an intentional encourager. Try it out. For the next two weeks, say something encouraging to someone on your team every day. Then watch to see how the person responds. Do that with everyone on your team, and they will not only want to work with you, but they will also get more done.
Practice Care and Candor: If you care about your people, you’ll want to be honest with them in a way that helps them. When you see that someone on your team is making mistakes or in some way falling short, plan to talk with the person immediately. Use the caring candor checklist to make sure you do it in the right way. And remember, it’s hard to go wrong as long as you’re practicing the golden rule.