A Simple (But Powerful) Exercise to Strengthen Your Leadership Skills

Author

Charlene Li
July 08, 2024

Think about the best leader you’ve ever worked for. Next, think about how they made you feel.

When I do this exercise, I think about Ian Smith, one of my very first bosses, from 30 years ago. 

And I feel limitless.

Like I could do anything.

When I work with leaders today, I ask them to think about the best leader in their work lives. Then, I invite them to choose one word that describes how that leader made them feel. 

Empowered? 

Valued? 

Confident?

Every time I do this exercise with a group, I think of Ian and how he nurtured a sense of limitlessness and audacity in me, when I was just beginning my career journey—I was only 23 years old at the time! Those were formative years, and under his guidance, I felt free to dream big and play big.

(I reunited with Ian—see photographic evidence!—two years ago, and I relished the opportunity to share this story with him and thank him.)

As leaders, our everyday words and actions have a lasting impact on those around us—good and bad.

We don’t often think about how we’re emulating our leaders and trying to create that same feeling. We forget what leadership really is—a relationship.

The greatest leaders are the ones who successfully create a level of closeness, familiarity, connection, and intimacy with their teams.

Why?

Because if we don’t have strong relationships with our employees, we simply can’t get work done. Leaders need to create comfort, safety, trust, and acceptance if they want to do the kind of work that disrupts and transforms organizations.

Without that safety, success—and achieving those big, audacious goals—will be nearly impossible. 

To build impactful relationships and become the best disruptive leader you can be, focus on creating these three elements: 

  1. Integrity. Your employees want to know that the company’s leaders are honest with them. They don’t want to be kept in the dark; they want to know what’s really going on. As leaders, we need to build a relationship with our employees that encourages honesty. Our employees must trust that, if they confide in us, we’ll treat them fairly – whether they’re happy or unhappy, staying or going.

  2. Agency. This is the belief that you have the power and ability to make decisions and take accountability for your actions. When your employees have agency, they understand how they can be more innovative and disruptive, and take ownership of the process. 

  3. Openness. Leaders must create trust by sharing, and your default must be openness. If your employees don’t feel comfortable being honest, trust, agency, and integrity diminish, and your employee relationships suffer.  

When we remember that leadership is a relationship, our perspective shifts entirely. 

Suddenly, fostering an environment of integrity, agency, and openness—and creating strong relationships built on trust that encourage people to show up, contribute, and execute your strategy—becomes a priority. 

I’m curious: Which of your leaders have had a lasting impact on you? I encourage you to reach out to them and let them know. 

And I’d love to hear about it, too! Give this exercise a go, and share your one word with me!

— Charlene

What I Can’t Stop Talking About: 

  • Thinking big is the first step. So often, when leaders lean too heavily on use cases to inform their approach, they instead end up thinking small, starting small, and staying small. Follow these three simple steps instead.

  • Google’s Gemini AI model. It turns out, Google’s “incognito mode” wasn’t all that incognito—so what does that mean for securing your data using Gemini? In theory, Google says it anonymizes and aggregates data before it’s used for “training purposes,” but you know me: I like to triple-check those privacy settings. Here’s how.

  • Only 20 percent of workers believe technology makes their job easier! Hard to believe, isn’t it? I uncovered so many surprising discoveries in a recent re-read of Tiffani Bova’s The Experience Mindset. 

My Latest: 

  • Catch up on my latest webinars! You can still review the slides and recordings of my two new webinars. In “Unlocking The Power of Generative AI,” I explain how to set up a generative AI “playground,” three ways to elevate your leadership with step-by-step instructions, and the broad outlines of creating a strategy. In “Developing a Winning Generative AI Strategy for Competitive Advantage,” I walk through the steps needed to create a cohesive AI strategy. 

  • Get updates on my forthcoming book. If you’re reading this, you are the target audience for my new book, Winning with Generative AI. Sign up for updates and early access and join my exclusive LinkedIn launch community.

  • Join our Office Hours. Katia Walsh and I are hosting a virtual office hours session to talk about our book! It will be held on July 24 at 10 A.M. PT / 1 P.M. ET. You can sign up for the session here.

  • Learn how AI can (and should!) inform OKRs. Objectives and key results are vital benchmarks for nearly all organizations, but what are they at their core? And how should we consider adjusting them in the age of AI? I’ll be sitting down with Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden, authors of “Who Does What By How Much?: A Practical Guide to Customer-Centric OKRs” in my next livestream. Join me on Tuesday, July 10 at 9 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET on LinkedIn and Facebook Live for more! 

My Upcoming Appearances:

If you want me to speak at an upcoming event or conduct a workshop with your executive team, please drop me a note at [email protected]. 

Thank you for subscribing to The Big Gulp Newsletter, which goes out to thousands of disruptors every other week to help you on your disruption journey—plus a curated recommendation list of the things I can’t stop talking about. 

Want more? Check out my weekly publication, Leading Disruption, on LinkedIn.

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Charlene Li

If you found this note helpful, please forward and share it with someone who needs the inspiration today. If you were forwarded this, please consider subscribing.