A+ Lady Leader Series - Are you aware of the bigger picture?

​Spending your entire leadership day with your head down, pouring over only what’s in front of you, won’t get you very far. Effective Lady Leaders regularly lift their head up, look around from side to side and peer off into the future. They are “systems aware.”
 
It’s time to take a look at how you can expand your awareness to this broader and longer view of your work.

​Excellence in Leadership Series
This is our second week in the Excellence in Leadership Series, which is looking at the skills needed to be an A+ Lady Leader. I am pulling these essential skills from The Leadership Circle Profile - TLC. TLC is a tool I use with the ladies in my Women with Grit program to help them become exceptional leaders.
 
Systems Awareness
This week in the series, I am focusing is on the skills of broadening and lengthening our view. That expanded view is what systems awareness is all about.
 
When you are cognizant of the systems around you, you lead with the bigger picture in mind. Instead of the tiny microscopic scene of the daily crises, the fires that pop up and the problem of the day in front of you, you adopt a macro perspective. Rather than using a microscope to dissect the immediate future, think of using a periscope and a telescope to look around you and ahead of you.

A community focus considering your long-term legacy
​The first thing this expanded perspective allows you to do is reawaken your concern for the welfare of the community you serve or the larger global community you are connected to. Next, it helps you to then connect your day-to-day work to the long lasting legacy you leave on that community. You start to consider how your leadership and the work your team does is of service to future generations?
 
When you are NOT Systems Aware
To put the skill of systems awareness into perspective, let's look at where many leaders are now. Instead of this long and broad view, many of us have a very tiny view. We adopt a short-term focus. So many leaders live in reactive mode, solving whatever problem pops up, putting out fires, looking for quick fixes or Band-Aid Solutions
 
Slow down and lift your head up
Instead, when you hone the skill of being more focused on the bigger systems, you widen your view and focus on the impact you have on the community, over the long-term. This requires you to step back from the urgency to fix the current crisis and lift your head up. It is about slowing down, looking around and then choosing a response rather than reacting.

3 skills to enhance
The three skills associated with increasing your system’s awareness are developing what is called community concern, focusing on being able to sustain your productivity and examining how systems are intertwined which is being a systems thinker.

​Community Concern
Our 1st focus needs to be on service to our larger community. We wouldn’t be in existence if we didn’t have our customers, clients or patrons. They create the need for our job, our team and our organization.
 
Start by asking yourself: What are we contributing to the community we serve?
 
Being concerned for your community starts with reconnecting to the bigger meaning behind why you do your job. It’s about purpose and passion. You got into this work for a reason. Most likely that wasn’t the pay cheque.

• Why did you end up here?
• What difference do you want to make?

When you keep that alive on a daily basis, you’ll be increasing your skills in this area. Being skilled as community concern is about connecting today's work to making a positive contribution to a larger community.

Sustainable productivity
Last week we reviewed the skills aroundachieving results. That is a crucial skill for effective A+ Lady Leaders. But an equally significant skill is the ability to maintain those results over the long-term. That capacity is called sustainable productivity. That means upholding consistent results long-term.
 
You sustain long term productivity by initially setting high standards, then, giving your team the resources and backing to do that. You must urge them along the way as well as at celebrate completion of goals. Being able to sustain long-term productivity means you care about the health of your team, both physically and emotionally. You can’t just pay lip service to health and wellness. You need to live this stuff, every day!
 
Too many teams focus on barely possible outcomes with less than adequate resources. It’s the old saying: Do more with less. We end up just barely surviving. That approach does nothing for employee’s health or the team morale.
 
Instead, when you hone the skills that help you sustain productivity, you become your teams trusted ally and enthusiastic cheerleader. You not only set high standards for the team, but you also show them and help them achieve those expectations. You and your team feel fulfilled in the process.

​Systems thinker
When we drop a pebble into water, the ripples expand in circles, affecting everything around them. Pebbles dropped anywhere in an organization have the same rippling out effect. Understanding this and thinking in this bigger systems way, allow you to see how everything is interconnected.
 
A systems thinker asks herself regular: How is this linked to that

Ladies with this view see the web of connectivity. HR connects to IT, and IT is related to Accounting. Any change in those systems trickles down to the employees and the customers. When you can lift your head up and take this broader view, you are honing your skill of being a systems thinker.
 
If you’ve seen leaders who micromanage, get defensive or quickly make poor decisions, they likely are not thinking about how the systems intermix. They are worried about putting out today’s fire. Systems thinking requires you to spend time analyzing how everything interacts. You need to see the complex connection between parts. When you can see the bigger picture, it liberates you from defensive micromanaging.

Grow your Systems Awareness Skills
Becoming systems aware helps you to lift your head up and take a look around. Looking up and around helps you to both keep your eye on the prize (your vision) and help you know what’s going on, that can either help you or hinder you on the way to that view way far off in the distance.
Hone the skills of:

• Community Concern: Focusing more on your concern for the larger community, rather than ticking off your to do list and getting through the next meeting.
• Sustain Productivity: Supporting your team to sustain long-term productivity as you set your sights on lofty goals.
• System Thinking: Taking into account the complex relationships between systems.

Remember, my dear, A+ Lady Leader uses microscopes, telescopes, and periscopes ;-)
 

Want to learn more?
You can learn more here by listening to this session on how you can increase your skills to increase your systems awareness.
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Then, get awaken your systems awareness, download the guide below which will help to broaden and expand your view of your work.

Weekly Facebook Live Session
Join me most Thursdays at 12:15 MDT for a Facebook Live session.
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Ask me questions and gain insights as you learn to lead and live with more balance and enjoyment.

If you aren't sure how Facebook Live sessions work, learn more here.