360-Degree Leaders influence people at every level of the organization, up, down & across. By helping others, they help themselves.

1. Lead-Up: Leading up is the process of influencing a leader. This process includes lightening the leader’s load by being willing to do what others won’t while knowing when to push forward and when to back off.

2. Lead-Across: Leaders in the middle of an organization are leaders of leaders. These leaders help peers achieve positive results, let the best idea win, and garner mutual respect. These leaders must develop and maintain credibility, and continually exert influence.

3. Lead-Down: Leaders at the top who lead down help people realize their potential, become strong role models, and encourage others to become part of a higher purpose. This involves walking through the halls, transferring the vision, and rewarding for results.

“Leadership is a moving target, and it always will be. If you desire to become a better leader, get comfortable with change. And if you want to lead up, learn to think like a leader. Think people, think progress and think intangibles.”

― Excerpts from the book, The 360 Degree Leader: Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization, written by John C. Maxwell.

Top three things required to grow as a Leader are:

Are You the 360-Degree Leader That Everyone Aspires to Become?

Source: http://cohenbrown.com/

1. Clarity: Be clear about the vision, goal, wants & needs of the organization.

"Clarity precedes success"

~Robin Sharma.

2. Capability:

Anecdote: Imagine if a person is wearing a shoe bigger than his leg size, the oversized shoe may make noise while walking, cannot walk properly, and might end up falling, similarly if the same person tries to squeeze his leg to wear an undersized shoe, he might get hurt, develop blisters, become irritated, again an uncomfortable situation. This is where the leader needs to know the right capability of a person during a new role assignment, promotion, or hiring.

Capability encapsulates how a leader is mentoring, managing, increasing the growth trajectory of the people, and ensuring that the people are growing at the right time at the right pace.

Knowing what are the tools and processes in place to achieve the organization’s goals?

Understanding how as a leader you ensure that the capabilities of your team are growing in the right direction?

“If we all did the things, we are capable of doing we would literally astound ourselves.” - Thomas Edison

3. Motivation: It has two aspects; one is Situational motivation (here & now) & Self-motivation (I am driven). When these two are put together it leads to success.

A proven mantra of success is when the sense of urgency meets execution excellence.

E^2 x U = SUCCESS

Dealing with a sense of urgency in an ever-growing & competitive environment with the best of best excellence in execution definitely leads to success.

Now, let us understand, what is situational motivation?

Insight: Why does Haryana have the best wrestlers, Bihar has the best IAS officers, Hyderabad has the best badminton champions, and Karnataka is known for silicon valley. Have you ever thought about these facts?

Everybody is wanting to find motivation when we see champions or successful people’s stories, we naturally get motivated to attempt a goal that was earlier never thought about or was postponed by us.

This is how can we inspire each other to be successful in an organization or community, state, or nation.

Situational motivation is the fundamental & core of every leader.

How do you treat everyone in your organization (at every level; from the security guard to the leaders), it matters the most?

How do you motivate and connect with others?

Encouraging people with rewards, letters, and personal notes, greetings & congratulating them, connecting personally with them to know about their life, and wellbeing, all these keep the people who work for you and under you motivated and inspired.

Success isn't just about what you accomplish in your life; it's about what you inspire others to do

How important it is for Techies to be empathetic & customer-centric?

Know your industry & Customer journey: We as techies are always part of a race, to compete we keep making a lot of blind choices to keep our resume up-to-date which must be avoided. The shift is required from Resume-centric to learning, and understanding the customer and market needs.

Customer & Industry are as important as technology. Understanding customer needs & landscape is the key to contributing to the organization and the end customer. Once customer needs are understood, map them to the areas of your contribution.

Sandeep’s thoughts on the importance of Innovation:

Innovation is a mindset.

Three things most important to be innovative are:

1. Curiosity: Be curious, ask the question “Why?” Develop a child-like mindset.

2. Velocity: Innovation needs velocity, if one wants to be ahead of game, keep moving, and be agile.

3. Learnability: learn to learn more and more. Keep updating and upgrading yourself.

For more insights by Sandeep Sharma, tune into #TGV136 (Link in the first comment)

At The Guiding Voice, we make every attempt to bring in the best of the content from speakers around the world, however, we would like to learn from you about the leaders that demonstrated 360-degree leadership and situational motivation. We'd love to connect and interact with them.

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Are You the 360-Degree Leader That Everyone Aspires to Become?