Like most of you, I have dropped a stone into a body of water to see how far the ripples expand out into the water. I am amazed how far the ripples reach from just a simple act of dropping a stone. The ripple effect is a great visual understanding of how leader’s actions impact and influence others throughout an organization. One simple action a leader takes can ripple throughout their organization.
Recently, I have been thinking about the ripple effect and leadership and started to ask some questions:
Are leaders aware of how their actions impact others?
What actions and behaviors are leaders doing that positively or negatively impact their organization?
Besides the leader’s direct reports, who else are they impacting and influencing within their organization? Outside their organization? How do my actions ripple throughout the organization and outside it?
How is the leader impacting these stakeholders?
What leaders can do to understand how their actions are impacting not only those they work closely with, but others too?
- Ask and get feedback from others how your actions are impacting them? Ask them to be specific what behaviors and actions they are noticing about you? Find out if they think you are aware of your actions and behaviors and how they impact others. If you are not self aware, I suggest taking an emotional intelligence assessment to determine your self-awareness capabilities. High self awareness is critical to successful leadership. You can either do this yourself or get the help from internal coaching or human resources or work with an outside executive coach who can conduct qualitative interviews and provide an assessment that measures emotional intelligence and self awareness.
- Create an influence map. Place your name in the center and start to write down the names of individuals or groups that you directly influence. Work your way out and ask yourself who you influence indirectly. Most of us don’t think about who we are impacting and influencing besides our boss and direct reports. What about outside the organization? Are their customers, Board members and regulators that my actions influence? You will be amazed at your reach of influence. Take some time and really give this some thought.
- Share your results of steps 1 and 2 with your boss and direct reports. Ask them to give you feedback and create a development plan on how to move forward. Identify the skills and competencies you want to work on and why, what success will look like, what specific actions you can do to develop, when do you want to complete these actions and finally, how do you want to measure your success?
I used this 3 step process recently with an executive I was working with. She was not self aware of how her actions were impacting others. She had a lot of turnover with in her group and was not clear why. From the qualitative interviews with her boss, peers and direct reports and the results from giving her emotional intelligence assessment, it was clear she lacked self awareness and how her behaviors and actions were affecting others throughout her organization. She was also not clearly aware of who she was impacting and influencing within and outside of her organization. She created an influence map and it helped her to realize who and how her actions were rippling throughout the organization and to outsiders as well.
I am pleased to report that after 6 months of work, retaking the emotional intelligence assessment, her self-awareness scores increased 35% and she is very aware of who is being impacted by her behaviors and actions and helped her plan accordingly to ensure a more effective interaction.
Leader’s behaviors and actions have a ripple effect throughout the organization and outside of it as well. As leaders we need to be more self aware of our behaviors; how they impact others; and who within and outside the organization are being impacted and influenced by your behavior and actions.
What kind of ripple effect are you having on your organization?