Unleash the Power of Your Hidden Leaders (724)
A PROMINENT SOUTHWESTERN US LABEL AND PACKAGING COMPANY asked me to help a promising employee with a low-key personality gain the confidence to speak as a leader.
This fellow, whom I’ll call Max, had come from a farming background and poverty. He’d started at the bottom of the organization, cleaning and starting up machines in the company’s factories.
Sick of watching better-educated employees get the nod for more responsible jobs, Max asked his boss for a chance to show he could do the job better than they could.
And he got his wish.
TURNAROUND ARTIST
Known for leading by being excellent, by the time I met him, he was being eyed for a promotion to a job helping to turn around ailing factories.
But he’d panicked when the boss asked him to address staff as a supervisor. Hit by an attack of imposter syndrome, he feared he wouldn’t meet people’s expectations.
I helped him improve his mindset, speaking technique and stagecraft, empowering and equipping him for the task he was being tapped for by helping him get the monkey of self-doubt off his back.
He went on to have a great career as a turnaround expert. Today he is president of another label and packaging company.
WISE MANAGERS
But his story never would have happened had his superiors not had the foresight to prioritize developing hidden leaders – nor been willing to push through their own comfort zones.
To help an organization find the right leaders to lead its charge to success, many senior managers must:
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Bypass the “reliable” and familiar processes of leadership development that ultimately may be informed by bias – such as what university the candidate attended, how they dress and how they talk about themselves.
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Have the courage to ask themselves if organizational bias is keeping talented members hidden; if they are seeing more than just the piece of paper the candidate got from their university; and if they have seriously attempted to learn about who the candidate is – what brought them to the organization, how their previous work experiences might have equipped them or a promotion.
- Act to make it happen.
But they also must do something else: foster a climate that rewards risk.
Hidden leaders can’t be empowered or found without the existence of a CLIMATE that rewards risk and makes mistakes acceptable.
REWARD RISK
“If everything is about eliminating liabilities, if you are playing to not lose versus playing to win, your culture will never, ever make informal leaders comfortable with taking that next step,” Max told me.
On the other hand, organizations that mobilize their resources to ramp up in-house talent development and activate their hidden leaders stand to save a lot of money in recruiting, onboarding and training potential leadership candidates.
Finding them, however, can be tricky, for several reasons.
1. They generally aren’t prone to boasting or seeking praise. They might consider it unprofessional to draw attention to work they’ve done well, since for them, doing a job well is what you do when you work.
2. They get overshadowed by colleagues who are flashier and more vocal, especially in talking about leadership ambitions with senior managers.
3. Any forms of organizational bias, be it prejudice against gender, race, age, health, educational background, or employment history can result in their being walled off in organizations from the leadership roles they could capably handle.
Sometimes the problem is just communication.
The highest person in the organization needs to communicate to the manager in the middle that the mandate is to keep an eye out for quiet potential leaders. But if that isn’t clearly communicated and understood, it isn’t going to happen.
On the other hand, while it’s worth it for organizations to bring their hidden leaders forward, much also depends on the willingness of the individual employee to push through their own comfort zones and possibly step up to a new level.
Sometimes, hidden leaders don’t necessarily want to be leaders. Being introverted, they like keeping their influence to their own department.
TEAM EFFORT
The secret of talent development is involving EVERY part of the operation in the process, be it setting practical and actionable plans for uncovering the aptitude of candidates, and equipping them with the skills they need to step into long-term leadership roles.
To learn how to empower leaders of all levels to rise to any communication challenge, go to michaelbarris.com/mini-course for a free public speaking series based on my bestselling book, “How to Become a Super Speaker: The 7 Principles for Speaking with Confidence and Connecting with Audiences.”
You will receive tips, strategies and take-action assignments for creating impactful talks and presentations that get the desired speaking results.
As with talent development generally, finding and empowering an organization’s hidden leaders must be a team affair.
MICHAEL BARRIS
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Michael Barris is the consummate evangelist for speaking better to be your best and create an impact with your career.
He is a transformational public speaking coach and speaker who has a background as a former adjunct professor of public speaking and expository writing at Rutgers University.
He also is the author of "How to Become a Super Speaker: The 7 Principles for Speaking with Confidence and Connecting with Audiences."
A longtime journalist, he worked for Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, producing articles on many of the world’s biggest financial and business news stories.
In total, he has produced over 3, 500 print articles over his journalism career, including more than 300 for the Wall Street Journal, and countless more published online.
Learn more about Michael and his work at michaelbarris.com
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