You’ve embraced the notion of leading yourself and have a plan in place to build a healthy team culture and a roster of people to bring it to life. All of the work you’ve done to this point is preparatory even as it is continual. Now, it is time to lead your team. How well you are able to do that will hinge on how well you master the art of being an excellent communicator. That means understanding the power of story and how to really connect with your team. It is through communication that the work of influence happens. Whether you are trying to understand how to effectively plan and run a team meeting or have a difficult conversation with a team member who is not performing at the level that’s needed, skill in communicating lies at the heart of both.

It can be challenging for a top-performing individual contributor to make this change from taking care of your specific role, task, and performance to doing that for an entire team. Making the leap from player to coach can be drastic and dramatic. Now is the most critical time to get to know your team and understand what makes them go, because making them go is now your job. How well others perform is now the measuring stick for your performance. You are now responsible for steering the ship without getting to put your hands on the wheel. It’s quite a different problem to solve.

And it all comes down to the results. As the leader, you are ultimately responsible for the results that your team produces. If you’re not comfortable with that, then it might be time to rethink the choice you made to be a leader. We’ll discuss what it means to have a vision, and why it’s important. We’ll discuss why you need to study and learn from your failures, but also why you should learn from your success so that you can replicate it (a critical step most neglect to take). We’ll discuss the importance of leading, managing, and coaching, and the differences among them, and why doing all three with humility is the key to powerfully productive leadership.