Leadership From Where You Are

In several posts I’ve talked about the importance of the attitude you have about Leadership, the attitude is more important than your position. Leadership From Where You Are is that, ATTITUDE

I work in the software industry and in the last couple of years no matter my position in the company, in every project I’ve been involved I have to work with people from other areas in the company and from other companies as well.

Most of the time we work in teams, so the leadership skills needed to lead don’t come naturally at hand, or easy to see. You have to work a lot on the Emotional Intelligence side, and have to do a lot of “put yourself in the other person’s shoes”.

I need to admit that is not an easy task, and sometimes is really difficult, but after a while you become used to it, and you start to be a team player.

I would like to share with you 4 tips that I think are important when working in project environments where you work mostly on teams.

1. Be A Team Player: Always remember that the success of the project has nothing to do with your success, if the project fails, you do too (to some extent of course). Always think what consequences your actions will have for the project and your team mates.

2. Be A Leader on Something: Probably the project you’re working on has a lot of different areas to address, and probably you can not lead in all of them, so find one you know your skills are important and be a leader, be the first to do suggestions, improvements, or actual work to show the way it should be done. Take the lead!

3. Be Generous: We all love to be on the spotlight or being recognised for our accomplishments, but sometimes you have to help a colleague or team mate to achieve his or her goals, leaders help other to achieve their goals and if their goals are common ground for the project, then better yet.

4. Be Excellent at What You Do: Even if you don’t lead, even if you’re not in the spotlight, you should know that your work is helpful and useful for the project (if it weren’t you wouldn’t be there), so do your best at your position, give your best at what you do. You probably think it’s not noticed, but would you prefer to be noticed for doing a poor job? I bet you wouldn’t. Great Leaders have to be excellent at what they do, no matter how “small” or “big” their position is, they know their actions are their words. By being excellent they set the standard they expect from everybody else.

So far, these are four things I just thought I’d like to share with you from my experience, I have to say I believe these are fundamental to become an excellent leader. Don’t wait anymore you can lead now right there, where you are now, from your actual position in your company, industry, or field of work.

Is there any other tip you can think about to Lead From Where You Are? Don’t be shy, and let us all know.

Remember, Be Alert, Be A Leader