Why You Should Lean Out

It is a fact that everything rises and falls on leadership and that the best ideas and products fail because there wasn’t a capable leader to oversee it. My belief in that is so strong that my goal is to grow those who work for me and those who work with me into leaders. It is also my belief that we are in the midst of widening leadership gap and the responsibility to grow other leaders should be priority number one.

How do you build other leaders if you are always dominating the interactions? In order to start building other leaders you have to lean out. Lean out of the conversation, lean back from the table and observe those around you. When you lean out others will start to lean in.

Remain vigilant in your observations and make sure that everyone has an opportunity to lean in. More than likely you have a mixture of extroverts and introverts. The extroverts typically won’t have a problem jumping in to participate. You have to balance their enthusiastic participation with their inherent tendency to dominate the interaction. With high-contributing introverts or newer members who are not yet familiar with the company culture or confident in their expertise to contribute will need your help lean in.

These 4 simple tactics can help you encourage others to lean into leadership – and help future leaders rise up:

Facial expressions – When you see someone making frowns, raising eyebrows, nodding or shaking their head call on them and ask what they are thinking.

Use a message board – People communicate in a variety of ways. Using a message board to hold a discussion or debate on a topic is a great non-threatening way for everyone to contribute.

Establish ground rules – How we will we function during these meetings, how we will we treat each other and what is the expected behavior? Defining these rules at the start of the meeting encourages everyone to contribute.

Lending your influence – As the leader your view carries a lot of weight. Lend that weight to others by saying I want to hear what your thoughts are because of you have (fill in the blank)? Or, did you know that so and so has accomplished X,Y and Z and what is their opinion on this?

Leaders need to sit back, lean out and let others lean in if they want to grow future leaders. Start creating a culture in which all individuals feel that their ideas and contributions are valuable.

Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 07:07 am