Achieved Strategies

My thoughts on leadership fill the Internet with millions of other leadership bloggers.  Yet there is one topic that isn’t discussed commonly in the many blogs on leadership – the skill of observation.

Often times the success of a leader is measured by the actions he/she takes and the results caused, rightly so; however, leadership is not all action.  A great leader also knows when to momentarily pause amidst all the action and observe what’s going with the team, understand what may be going on, know which questions to ask in order to proceed.

Just as successful leaders plan a course of action to lead their team to success, they also know when to adjust their approach.  The adjustments are derived from their observations of what’s going on around them.

Leaders use some of these observation queues to inform their leadership (and management) actions:

Interactions between people During meetings, are different ideas explored? Are people interrupted before completing their thoughts? Are new people introduced and welcomed to a meeting? Who stays after the meeting to help clean up? Are the same people late to meetings, appointments? Is there a possible pattern in how people interact?  Who helps each other and who doesn’t?

Cliques With whom do people interact? Who is known as the “disruptive” person and who interacts with him/her?  Who confides with the “quiet” person? What about the “peace maker?” Cliques are useful ways to understand group dynamics and norms.

Responses from individuals over time If you’ve surfaced concerns to a member of your team, how do they respond – inquisitive, frustrated, defensive, angry, emotional, calm?  Who on your team keeps their word? Who follows-up with you when a deadline may be missed? Who makes excuses for mistakes? How do people, the team respond to mistakes? How do you respond to mistakes?

Spatial relationships Where do people sit in meetings?  When people talk with each other, how close or far apart are they? How close or far apart do people sit during meetings?

Eye contact Look for when eye contact is maintained and when broken.  Is eye contact made when complimentary statements are made? Do people roll their eyes when certain individuals share ideas or viewpoints?

The key to effective observational skills is to not believe your own conclusions.  It’s best to inquire into or test what you observe going on before believing your conclusions to be true.  Not even the greatest leader can escape their biases.  Biases will influence what we conclude about what’s going on between people or with a person.  The effective leader will use observational skills to help people and teams reach higher levels of performance.