What will define you in 2011? Specifically, I am talking about your leadership. What will it mean to be led by you over the next 12 months? Its a great question to ask because it forces us to look at things from our employee’s perspective. This is the foundation of Autonomy Supportive leadership.

To move beyond a rhetorical question however, lets get practical. I’m going to give you a powerful exercise.

1. First write down one paragraph detailing what you want it to be like for people who are under your leadership. When people ask your employees what its like to work for you, what do you want them to say.

2. After you do that I want you to summarize your entire paragraph in only three words. What three words are going to define your leadership in 2011? Will it be Inspiration, Fairness, and Excellence? How about Visionary, Innovative and Creative? Or maybe Execution, Results, Caring. You pick your three words that you want to define your leadership this year. To help, imagine one of your employees at the end of the year chatting with a friend who asks “What’s your boss like?” and after pausing a moment they sum you up in three words. What are they going to be?

3. For each of the three words write down 10 practical applications. For example if one of your words was Visionary then you want to write down a list of ten possible ways you might demonstrate this quality. Maybe its how you will conduct your team meetings, or telling one employee each month how much you believe in them, or creating a unique scoreboard to measure your progress, or learning to speak in a more compelling and visionary way.

This exercise is very powerful and it helps you take what are sometimes nebulous concepts, and put them into practical action.

To finish, find a creative way to print out your three words and post them somewhere you will see them on a daily basis.

Download the worksheet below to walk you through this exercise.

When Henry Ford said, “Those who think they can and those who think they can’t are both right,” he had no idea that a generation later, science would back him up with evidence. In fact, belief is a powerful predictor of success and failure. In one study, a group of smokers who were attempting to quit were first given a psychological assessment. A researcher sat down with each of them and explained that based on their results, they each had a great chance of quitting because of their “strong will power and great potential to…conquer desires.” This group in fact went on to be more successful at quitting than the control group who did not go through the assessment. The tests were actually bogus, and indicated no such thing about these people, but because they expected success, it fed their belief and belief is very powerful. (Blittner, Goldberg & Merbaum, 1978)

Psychologists who have researched “Expectancy Effects” tell us that events we expect to occur are in fact more likely to occur. Beliefs come in many sizes and shapes but I want to highlight one here. It’s called Self Efficacy. It simply means having a high degree of confidence to perform a certain task. When you have a strong belief in your ability to perform a task you have what is called high self-efficacy. *Researchers have found in repeated studies that self-efficacy is one of the most powerful predictors of change and success.

So how does this relate to us and to our leadership? First, leaders need a healthy dose of confidence in their role as leaders. Too often, we doubt our skills as we search for the ‘one best way’ to lead. The truth is there are many different approaches to leadership, and sometimes the best lesson is learning to be ‘yourself.’ That is as long as ‘yourself’ doesn’t like to go around bullying your staff.
When it comes to achieving a certain goal, or objective at work, we have to decide ahead of time to believe that we will be successful. This belief spurs motivation, persistence, determination and focus; all of the things that actually help us accomplish the job.

Secondly, leaders need to demonstrate great amounts of belief in their people. We want to help boost their Self Efficacy. In the study cited above, the smokers who had higher success rates in quitting were the ones who had credible sources tell them they should be able to do so. Keep in mind; this belief was based on false information, but the belief alone spurred their commitment to the goal. As leaders, our voice carries a lot of weight with our employees. I am not saying we should mislead our staff in order to have them perform at higher levels. I am merely demonstrating that there is an inherent power in belief alone. Now how much more powerful is belief when it is grounded in truth? We need to use that weight to communicate belief, bolster confidence, and help people see the talents they really do have. Most people seem to underrate their abilities, and when we help them see how much they have to offer, and how talented they are, the greater chance they will have at succeeding in their role.

A few tips

1. Regularly take time to express belief in the abilities of your staff.

2. When you reward or recognize an employee for a job well done, remember to praise their attributes that led them to successfully completing the project and not just the completed project itself.

3. Belief is something you choose to have. Each morning remind yourself to have confidence in your ability to lead others or accomplish whatever task lies before you.

*Bandura, 1991; Kelly, Zyzanski, & Alemagno, 1991; Brownell, Marlatt, Lichtenstein, & Wilson, 1986; Candiotte & Lichtenstein, 1981; Locke, Frederick, Lee & Bobko, 1984; Stock & Cervone, 1990; Norcross, Ratzin & Payne, 1989