My Lessons Learn on Virtual Leadership & How do I define my Leadership style
Context: I’m in charge of one team of 5 members to achieve our team goals in the subject Management Information System in one month during CIO Coaching Program [1].
In Part 1 — I’ll introduce my lesson learn and go further, finding what is leadership and how to define it for ourselves in part 2 of the article.
Part 1 — My Lesson Learn
- It’s so interesting and useful to us when studying and discussing online completely during this subject. Everyone was working remotely (due to Covid) and all have lessons on the pros and cons of remotely working experience.
- Our subject is MIS — the area I have just a bit of experience (10% based on my reflection after the completed the project) — we tried to propose a Distribution Management System for the Board of Directors based on the context that includes — FMCG industry, Distributor type. (it matters for me to realize the lessons below)
1. Vision & find out what we need to do?
I got trouble when finding the next step or milestone we need to archive. The point is I have no experience. As a leader for me, I need to find you the right thing to do. So when having no experience to guide the team, my teammates and I tried to google things.
Google is a good skill to gain knowledge or understand the concepts, but to understand what exactly to do, and do right, google is just not enough. It has giga-knowledge on the Internet. So within a certain period of time (for us 1 week), know exactly what the right thing to do is an a-must. The right way is we should ask someone is really know about this subject — subject matter expert (The subject matter expert (SME) provides the knowledge and expertise in a specific subject, business area, or technical area for a project/program).
- Subject matter expert is a key role to contribute to every successful project.
- If we don’t have a lot of time, no experience, no Lean Start-up Loop like my situation, try to ask an expert and should ask good questions.
- Asking How? — I’m not afraid to recognize that I don’t know what to do next. My team members can go and blame me but only after the project. The key now is that we need to discuss our ideas and opinions by the question: “How will we go next to achieve the goal?”
2. Commitment
- We commit to our promise, & our responsibilities. Understand the responsibilities of your is extremely important with our role. Even we are an owner, an executive, a man with our family, execute our responsibilities.
- Dealing with Criticism — This situation usually appears in every team. Remind the team about our goal and what to do now is one way I do. I agree with asking Why we fail or discuss it, but not when we have problems in front of our team. Solve it and we can do this thing in the end.
3. Managerial Skills
We all need the management skillset. Prepare soon and be ready whenever the chance comes.
This is a long rail we need to take accountabilities, and on that rail, one of the most important things that we need to be courageous to make decisions. Consider teammate's contributions and their opinions and be responsible for your decisions. [2]
- In my situation, not Technical Skills are the key to lead us to our goals. It’s more important about human skills — which I receive some good feedbacks to connecting people and keeps them moving forward and conceptual skills - know what’s already happens to consider with our mates and make decisions then.
Part 2 — Defining leadership style
1. What is it?
The famous serial of books about leadership is John Maxwell's books.
And let’s go down more about what characters of leadership. I found a great resource with real-life examples on a lot of entrepreneurs and politicians:
As part of the research for my new book, “The Future Leader,” I interviewed more than 140 CEOs around the world and asked them each to define leadership. Many people struggled or had to pause to think because it’s a word we use so frequently without really defining it. We take the concept of leadership for granted and assume that we all know what leadership is and what a great leader looks like. Once the CEOs found their definitions, their answers ran the gamut. From more than 140 people, I didn’t receive a single duplicate response. — Jacob Morgan and his book “The Future Leader” [3]
What I can say here: Be Leader, not when we have the titles & determine your own leadership style.
2. How to find out leadership style (and more!)
1 Reflecting On The Past, visualize your future version, improve yourself every day to come to your destination (A Future-Back Approach)— To me, this is the best way.
The term “improve yourself every day” — is a confusing term to know what exactly to do. I still think about a 1% improvement formula every day. But my experience tells that have the simple tip here — every day you have ‘daily goals’ to complete things, and those goals need to align with your future version. Connecting the dot here.
- Why this work — The power of goal setting — Research by Dominican University College — where “Groups written Goals” archived significantly more than “Groups unwritten Goals” is 50% (😍) (6.44 / 4.28 in the report) [4].
- Disclaimer: Of course the future version needs to reflect from time to time (for me quarterly). Everything will change.
- Book recommendation: One good book from my library that writes about determining the future version — “7 Mindsets of Success” by Sten Morgan
2 Reflecting On The Past, improve yourself every day, maybe have a future version or not and act without alignment goals — To me, this is the worse way.
This way doesn’t mean we won’t succeed. Based on the study of Dominican University, the time to be successful will be longer, the percent of success will be lower.
- Why? — If we don’t try hard to decide our future — someone else. Should we believe in someone else or ourselves? Be the Leader of ourselves.
- Disclaimer: Why don’t we try the way more effective by a study than the way just by feeling (have no goals or just ‘on-paper goals’).
3. Recommend watching (gems here)
What makes for a good leader? That depends on how you define good and the context — a corporation or a nation or a social movement. How much do qualities such as morality, integrity, intelligence and other personal traits matter? Are leaders born or are they made by accidental circumstances? Can a political leader really alter the trajectory of a nation dramatically for the better?
In the end,
Thank you to read my articles and if I can, I want to share 3 things:
- Be a Leader asap
- Have goals include long-term goals and daily goals
- If we don’t try hard to decide our future — someone else
🎶🎶🎶
Resource:
[1] —My Medium’s Blog — From CIO VietNam — Retreat day: A little bit about Teamwork vs Individual Work
[2] — Entrepreneurship In A Box — For Your Business Success — Managerial Skills
[3] —Chief Learning Officer Magazine — What is leadership, and who is a leader?
[4] — Dominican University of California — Goals Research Summary
