7 Ways to Boost Your Boldness as a Leader

Business Consulting & Coaching

Boldness has long been considered necessary for effective leadership. Intuitively you recognise the value of a bold leader: they are inspiring to be around and they challenge you to grow beyond your current limitations. 

Although boldness has traditionally been associated with male leaders, the latest research from Harvard Business Review shows that women scored slightly higher than men against a ‘boldness index’, particularly in male dominated areas.

I am sure we all would like to be perceived as bold leaders, yet what you should do to lead boldly often feels intangible. What does it actually look like? Fortunately, researchers Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman have unpacked it for us and offer the following measures of boldness:

How bold are you?

Reflect on how you rate against each measure and identify some strategies for boosting your boldness!

1. Challenges standard approaches – do you accept the status quo or take time to ask questions? One of my clients dealing with an overwhelming workload started to question everything he was routinely doing. He identified a monthly report that took two team members at least two days each month to produce, discovering that not one person ever referred to it. He promptly stopped producing it! What questions could you be asking?
2. Creates an atmosphere of continual improvement – do your conversations focus on maintenance or  improvement? Do you prioritise time to reflect with your team around what is working and what could be improved?
3. Does everything possible to achieve goals – are you willing to put in the effort to achieve personally? Do you acknowledge achievement as a core value in your team?
4. Gets others to go beyond what they originally thought possible – do your team members walk away from you with a bigger vision and more confident about what they can do? I am grateful that the first boss I had in a senior role had a much greater belief in my capacity than I did, enabling me to live up to his belief.
5. Energises others to take on challenging goals – Are you constantly mindful of developing your team by building their skills, knowledge and belief in themselves? Are performance reviews about what they did wrong or focused on how they can grow in the year ahead?
6. Quickly recognises situations where change is needed – are you aware of the upcoming risks and opportunities in your context? Do you have the metrics in place to know when its time to adopt a different approach?
7. Has the courage to make needed changes – are you willing to back yourself and implement new ideas and processes once you’ve done your homework? Do you encourage your team to take appropriate risks and explore new ways of working?

How did you score?