The Astonishing Secret to Becoming a Remarkable Leader: Why Prioritizing Others is the Ultimate Game-Changer!

Have you found yourself searching for the root cause of underperforming equipment without a clear indication of the problem? Do team members seem to give you only positive information and withhold any critical feedback? Are people too cautious when it comes to speaking up in meetings?

These may be signs of reassessing your leadership style and adopting a put others first mindset. If you can adjust your perspective, trust yourself and your team to take smart risks, listen, and most importantly, put yourself in a position to support your teams, you can become the kind of humble, curious, and focused leader who inspires people to bring their best selves to the workplace.

Much has been said about the growth of narcissism in the business world. I don’t know if it’s the ‘watch me’ aspect of social media or the inflated expectations of years of self-esteem programs. But I know it won’t help us do our best work. If we really want our teams to succeed, we need to take an approach I call “unself yourself.”

Related: If you want to be more successful than your competition, you need this mindset to win.

I first realized this point at the age of 10. I had a big birthday party about to hit double digits, but my friends had more fun playing keep away with a beach ball while I felt left out. In my self-centered 10-year-old point of view, this was a problem in my special day. So, I took the beach ball and hid it in the bathroom.

My father was not happy. He was an entrepreneur who had founded one of the first organization and time management companies, eventually purchased by the organization better known as Franklin Covey. That day he told me that he was being rude and selfish. He explained that the party was not about me, even though it was my birthday, but as the host of the party, my role was to serve my guests first, telling me, “I’m asking you to be alone for a while because it’s important that you know that the selfish people end up alone.”

The lesson stuck with me. In today’s world, the way CEOs view their impact on the growth and success of their teams is changing, making it even more critical that leaders develop their leadership philosophy and learn how to grow and evolve it. . Empathy, humility, and keeping an open mind are skills few executives learned in business school, but these are the ones that have brought me the most success.

Empathy

This principle revolves around the idea that a leader’s primary role is to think about what their employees need and how they can support their growth and success. You can see this called “servant leadership”, the “Ted Lasso” show has shown this approach. But you need to think about what your employees are experiencing and how a particular decision may affect them.

Helping others has a much more powerful impact than focusing solely on taxes and requires treating people as you would like to be treated. When you read stories about CEOs failing on layoff announcements or similar bad news, it’s probably because they didn’t put themselves in their employees’ shoes before hitting send. But thinking about how a message will get through will make your communications more effective.

Related: Why empathic leadership is more important than ever

Curiosity

You can also call this ‘humility’: the idea that the strategies you’ve used all your life may not work anymore. Or there is a critical factor that you had not even considered. Part of revealing yourself is accepting that you may not be the smartest person in the room (and if you’ve hired well, you’re not!).

I spend about 30% of my time in employee engagement because happy employees are essential to our success. It’s also very helpful to hear directly from line employees what challenges they have and ideas they have for improving the company.

Related: Curiosity didn’t kill the cat! How curious leaders keep their business agile.

Listening

Too many leaders only focus on what they have to say or what they will say next instead of focusing on active listening. If you’re the only one talking, convey to everyone else that you don’t care what they have to say (‘the smartest person’ again). At your next team meeting, try to participate by only asking questions. It will be a struggle at first, but it will change how you think about your team and how they think about you. You can still have the ‘last word’ at the end of the meeting, but one of the first questions to ask is, “How can I help?”

As a leader, you can reach your full potential by focusing on benefiting others. You’ll get the best impact from your team when you prioritize their growth and happiness – business results will follow. Successful companies have a culture of happy and productive employees. Not wearing too much “Ted Lasso” again, but you’ll be happier when you see everyone else happy at work.

As a CEO, I have seen how this unique value sets the best apart from the average. Leaders with an “others first” mentality will always generate more loyalty than a CEO who only focuses on his personal scorecard of power, compensation, or results.

selfless leaders they are rare, and committing to this approach is not easy. But this is one area of ​​leadership that will enhance your leadership skills and set a great example for any employee who grew up focusing on your success. It can be hard to go from ‘having all the answers’ to ‘asking all the questions’, but your team will notice the shift and help you discover that good leadership starts with remembering, “It’s not about you.”