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I was reading Kevin Kim’s post, one step up last night. He mentions his struggle to understand what it means to lead without having a leadership position and he says:
“If you can help one person get to their next step, I think you would have helped change your organization in a significant way. This doesn’t require a position or hierarchy.”
He goes on to talk about ways that we can help “bring someone up” by helping others to get to their next step. As I read this, it took me back to a previous job where I was the number two person in a non profit human services organization and responsible for everything related to running the business.
One of my employees, actually our receptionist, who was an extremely wise women used to say that “the little things are the BIG things.” As I read Kevin’s post about helping to “bring someone up” I realized that sometimes it IS all about the little things.
Paying Attention to the Little Things
When we pay attention to the little things, we are showing others that we are not just interested in ourselves or focused on our own motives. Constant awareness of the little things adds up over time and builds trust. When we have built trust, others become willing to follow. The reverse is also true, if we are not paying attention to the little things, over time all of these little things turn into big things that cause folks to not want to follow us.
Here are three of the little things to pay attention to:
Use People’s Names – This may sound simple, but we all like to hear someone call us by our name. When we consistently don’t use someone’s name it starts to show that we don’t care about that person as an individual.
Say “Good morning” – This also sounds simple, but when we arrive at the office in the morning, we should great everyone we see with a “good morning”. The same things goes for leaving at the end of the day, wish those that we see a “good night”. If we just make a b-line from our cars to our office without acknowledge others, it sends out clear signals that we are unapproachable.
Listen when spoken to – Many times when someone is talking to us, we hear what they are saying but we really aren’t listening. We’re thinking what we’re going to say next, or what a boring person this is, or what we want for lunch. When we make a habit of not listening people pick up on this and sooner or later just stop talking to us.
The little things will become the big things. If we ignore the little things they will turn into bigger problems. However, if we pay attention to the little things, they can turn into a big benefit from the trust that we earn with others that become willing to follow us. This is one thing that we can do to become a leader at any level in an organization, even without having a position of leadership.
What other “little things” do you try to pay attention do every day?
Learning to listen was the biggest challenge for me, but once I started working seriously on it, I found it could be an active, creative practice; a subtle but powerful use of the faculty of attention.
In the context of “bringing someone up,” you can use your imagination to create the space to which you want to lead them (their “next step”), and then listen to them from that space. This has the effect of illuminating the path between where they currently are, and that space that is their “next step.”
In short, attention is the currency of the universe. Whatever you pay attention to, you get more of, invariably. What you pay attention to is only limited by your imagination. Attention and imagination are the toolbox of leadership.
Gordon, thanks for bringing up the topic of attention. I whole heartedly agree with you that attention is the currency of the universe and it really is one of the foundations of what makes Reflection Leadership so powerful. When we are able to draw our attention to the things that are most important instead of just most urgent, we are able to amazing things and, as you say, we are only limited by our imagination.