They say that great leaders aren’t born, but grow into their positions through sweat and tears. No matter what stage in life, industry, or phase of your career you’re at, it is important to continuously strengthen your skills, and this ongoing development is one of the key values we look to foster in our team members.
Abie Ekangaki, Vice President, Statistical Consulting, recently presented a three-part video series on this topic as part of a virtual training initiative sponsored by the Biopharmaceutical Section of the American Statistical Association (ASA). Even if you are not a statistician, this series offers insight into common shortcomings in leadership for many individuals, offers approaches to develop personal impact, and invokes a sense of purpose and ownership in one’s volition to raise their ability to influence.
PART 1: Develop your Leadership Impact – Three phases of career development
Abie introduces the basic idea of the three phases of an individual’s leadership journey – Building your Foundation, Differentiating yourself, and Empowering others. Together, these form the building blocks for enriching one’s leadership curve. Each stage of this framework is designed to work as a roadmap to help you grow and enrich your individual leadership impact.
PART 2: Close the Leadership Gap – Take Action and Be “Cause”
Learn how to break out of your comfort zone to successfully execute an enrollment conversation aimed at gaining alignment and CAUSING agreement on a common position – a familiar difficulty in today’s multi-disciplinary workforce. Abie offers a pathway to closing the leadership gap and conducting such a conversation. He proposes a six-step approach for effectively navigating discourse towards this end. This roadmap could serve as a general guide for helping prepare for a strategic conversation.
PART 3: How One’s Philosophies on Leadership Can Have an Impact on Leadership Ability
In this talk, Abie advances approaches for how organizations, as well as employees, can unveil and develop hidden individual leadership attributes. He proposes four general philosophies on leadership and delves into how each one translates into actual actions that can help evolve one’s leadership impact, regardless of level in the corporate hierarchy. Abie’s underlying premise is that in any organization, it is possible to extract leadership strengths from individuals by presenting clear leadership philosophies and establishing a corporate culture that embraces these philosophies and integrates them into everyday work.
In general, the principles espoused in this leadership series can be easily woven to apply directly to any discipline or area of interest. The key is to grasp these principles and find simple ways to embed them in your daily life. Hopefully, the material in this series can help in raising your ability to effectively influence and to bridge those gaps in communication.