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How To Pick Your Leadership Icons

Hey, everybody, it’s great to be here with you today. And I’m super excited to talk to you about your leadership icons.

It’s so interesting when we think about who we want to emulate when we become leaders, we want to think about, we want to think about choosing people to emulate who aren’t really our natural first choice. You see, we all have these personality types. So, someone who is more dominant might really love the idea of power in leadership, or someone who’s more of a charismatic leader, they might be really interested in what people think about them. And we might tend to have our default be to choose leaders who have that thing we think we want in leadership. But if we start to choose icons, who actually exemplify the qualities that we don’t necessarily have, then we get a deeper dive on leadership.

I think it’s super important to think about choosing icons, who are really good at leadership, I think we go down a rabbit hole sometimes, and we think people who are really dominant and tell everybody what to do, or someone who’s really charismatic, that those people are exemplifying leadership, I think they’re actually just exemplifying their personality. I think true leadership can be learned. And it’s a skill, it’s something that we practice. And so, if we choose to emulate leaders who have practiced that skill, who have taken on knowledge, who show the skills of leadership, then we’re able to start to pick up those skills and improve our own leadership over time.

So, one of the things that I want everyone to start thinking about as they pick people to emulate in leadership, is don’t go with your default. Think about it, spend just a little time thinking about it, so that you can consider what is it you want to learn from them? And then I always think it’s important to think about how does that person manage up? How do they manage their direct reports? How do they manage their peers? How do they manage customer relationships? And what are the actual skills that they’re exemplifying that you’d like to learn from them? And then how might you learn those skills? I think that we are enticed by these personalities in leadership. My husband and I were talking about it. It’s like when we start to identify leadership and children. What are they leading? anyway? All they’re exemplifying when we talk about leadership in young people is whether or not they’re dominant or they’re charismatic. But what we actually want to see is, are people able to move work forward? Are they able to help people have better job satisfaction?

And those are the things that you want to be looking for in the people that you can emulate your icons in leadership. Don’t fall into the trap of picking the bossy person or the charismatic person. Those people may or may not be good leaders. Look for people who are leading people well, and start to emulate them or start to ask them what they know about leadership. That’s the way that you can start to improve your own leadership, and also to look for those specific skills. I’m Melanie Parrish, go experiment.

 

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