Claire Turnbull and Nigel Latta at ThinkTank Emerging Leaders Summit

Be a great leader!

We are all leaders - be it at work, at home as a parent or in our communities . I had the great pleasure of MC’ing the ThinkTank Emerging Leaders’ Summit with some amazing speakers including Nigel Latta, Flilipo Levi and Lisa O’Neill and I picked up some HOT tips I thought you might enjoy…

BE SELF AWARE

As a leader, we need to be able to keep calm when others are not. Use a scale of 0-10 to check in with yourself during the day to see how you are feeling. 0 is super chilled, 10 is off the chart stressed. Even just being AWARE of how you feel is a massive first step. Then what can you do to get yourself from a 7 to a 5? Or 5 to 3?
Check your language and the story you are telling yourself and others. Simply moving from I ‘have to’ to I ‘choose to’ can be powerful. You might feel you HAVE to do things, but really, you are choosing to do those things because it is better than the alternative.
Be sure you have people in your life who give you honest feedback, rather than everyone just agreeing with you all the time.

LOOK AFTER YOURSELF

You need to be cool and calm in order to lead well and make good decisions.
Don’t feel you need to over commit and do everything to grow as a leader, just commit to being 1% better and then when you are 1% better, aim for another 1%.... over time, you will flourish without burning out.

FOCUS ON QUALITY RELATIONSHIPS

Empathy is the glue that holds things together.
Get to know people who you work with more deeply – find out about their culture, their best working style, how they function best in the world… the more insight you have, the better you can lead.

PLAN AND REDUCE UNCERTAINTY

As a leader you need to show others you have a clear plan, direction and focus, even if the exact path isn’t entirely clear.

CREATE A SAFE SPACE

Create an environment where it is safe to ask questions.
Celebrate people’s differences, we all have different ways of thinking, communicating and learning, harnessing the skills that comes from different approaches to a problem can be a game changer.