Top-down hierarchical company models are obsolete, and top-notch credentials and experience no longer solely define exceptional leadership.
Successful and exceptional leadership requires engagement and involvement and being there with the soldiers on the ground.
To become today’s digital-age leaders, you’ll need to learn a whole new set of skills for motivating and inspiring people. Therefore, we are amid the changes and uncertainties that come with a fast-changing digital world. A positive outlook never hurts.
Peter Cox, popularly known as “Coxey,” the founder and CEO of Leadership Dynamics, believes that informed leaders must develop teams with the skills to take ownership and make autonomous choices, which empowers people and increases their self-worth.
According to Cox, here’s how to establish high-performance teams in the digital economy.
Virtually connect with your team to form strong bonds of leadership.
With the introduction of the internet and remote work, the concept of business and leadership strategy is now on its head. And, now more than ever, leaders must find a way to be engaging rather than overbearing while leading their employees one on one.
To create deeper rapport and increase trust, Coxey uses the 22 degrees of emotion from Abraham and Hicks’ Emotional Guidance Scale. He uses this as a tool to detect how team members are feeling before commencing an online meeting.
To lead someone online, you must first understand where they are emotional. For example, it’s much more challenging to get a sense of someone’s mood and emotional condition when you’re chatting online rather than in person, Coxey adds.
Provide direction and a goal.
People should always come first, even in the digital era. As a result, Coxey recommends that your team develop an inclusive vision and goal.
A vision will provide your staff with a sense of direction and encourage them to work together toward a shared objective that they believe in. It’s never been more crucial to motivate workers to become more engaged in their distant roles and responsibilities.
We are constantly on Zoom calls or online meetings in today’s corporate environment. These, though, aren’t always fruitful. Instead of inundating your staff with meetings, Coxey recommends using your online time to excite and inspire them. Therefore, as you develop individuals, your team and company grow. The product is your people, not the thing itself.
Encourage participation and accountability. This is the role of exceptional leadership.
The way teamwork has changed dramatically as a result of digital innovation. However, it’s critical, according to Coxey, to create a workplace culture of responsibility and respect, which leads to trust. Individuals and teams will be able to deal with digital operations outside of the actual office space due to this.
John Maxwell, who counseled Coxey, has spent a lot of time with him. What you don’t see, you don’t know.
You don’t micromanage individuals; instead, you scrutinize them, which is how you develop leaders.
Some people don’t go to bed worried about whether or not they’re doing a good job. This is because they’ve accepted responsibility for their actions. These people have faith in themselves. They don’t want to disappoint themselves. Therefore, they have trusts, which is a step above responsibility. Maxwell taught Coxey that relying on is the finest praise one can get in life.
Encourage and motivate.
Coxey is a firm believer in the power of improvement or the process of educating or uplifting others. Teamwork suffers because of it.
You can elevate everyone except yourself. In his TEDx Talk, “Edification Changed My Life,” he discussed the importance of promoting individuals one-on-one, in front of the whole team, or writing/video.
Great leaders, he believes, must also be able to put themselves in other people’s shoes.
When you look at things from someone else’s perspective, you may notice precisely what they need and assist them. According to him, this is how you begin to get respect as a leader.
Some people believe in demonstrating to others that they, too, can be superstars. Therefore, this is how you create a high-performance team and a winning team culture.
Show others how to move forward through exceptional leadership.
In this digital age, it’s crucial to be willing to be led. Indeed, for the last three decades, Coxey has gathered information from various worldwide businesses, which he says has helped him become a great leader.
According to Coxey, no one has all the answers. Not even CEOs.
Therefore, to lead you must first have the humility to be led by someone else who is not in your organization, someone who will challenge and push you to improve in all aspects of your life.
Allowing yourself to follow another leader will enable you to lead others, which gives you the power to persuade others to want to follow you because they trust you.
