People often mistake being a leader with being the big boss in town that has reached a position in the company where one sits at the table, reaping the rewards for one’s continued success. I am sorry to disappoint you, but although being successful has potentially earned you a few perks, being a successful leader means above all being a talented leader who is in service of his or her team.

So, what does being in service of your team really mean? In my experience, you will be seen as a leader by your team, and not just a boss if you do these 5 things.

1. Coach your people and aim for effective feedback

To serve your people effectively, you must understand what they need from you. The best way to do this is to act as a coach: Listen to what people tell you about how they feel in their role; ask powerful questions on what people need, what their aspirations are, what they like or dislike in their work. With this information, take action to bring to your people what they need from you. The most effective way to do this is to use your regular 1-1 sessions with your direct reports and ask them these powerful questions that focus on them, and not on the work. For instance, questions such as:

– What is important to you in completing this task?
– What is getting in your way?
– How can I support you this week?
– How are you progressing against your goals?
– What is on your mind this week?

2. Give “air cover” and be at the center of the battle

The best way a leader serves is by providing “air cover” to their team. By this, I mean creating a shield above your team so it can work effectively. For instance, have your team’s back when people on the team perform tasks or work on projects, making mistakes along the way, so they can learn from these mistakes without the fear of being judged or reprimanded by someone – because you will stand there as their leader to protect them.

Richard Marcinko, the legendary founder and leader of the original counter-terrorist unit Seal Team Six used to say “I will always be easy to find: I will be at the center of the battle.” When the team is struggling or when you want to establish your credibility with the team, they must see you on the battlefield.

I once inherited a demotivated team: That team had no support from their former manager, they were constantly criticized by other teams, and nobody understood what their challenges to perform their tasks were. In my first year, I left my office to sit with these guys for the quarter close process. I was there for them, helping them set priorities, supporting them with getting the information they needed, stepping in and get my hands dirty, or protecting them from other stakeholders. Doing this proved key to create trust with the team. Today, I no longer lead them from the front, I am leading from behind, coaching them and seeing how I can best serve them.

3. Delegate to empower them (stop solving problems)

This is not about giving a task that you are bored with to someone else. Delegating is about entrusting someone on your team with a project or a task of importance, that has a critical impact on the team and the organization. By delegating, you give your people an opportunity to learn, to make decisions on their own, to find solutions to problems, to increase their visibility in the organization. By trusting people, they will reply to that trust by being more motivated and feeling more empowered to work. Use your regular 1-1 with your reports to understand what makes them tick at work, how they envision their career growth. This will give you lots of clues about what you can delegate to them.

4. Focus on people’s growth

A good leader is deeply invested in their people’s development and growth within the organization. For instance, in regular 1-1 or during annual reviews, spend a lot of time discussing career aspirations, training needs, goals (remember #1 above?). These are opportunities to delegate new tasks or projects (remember #3 above?)

Many leaders are afraid to discuss people’s career aspirations. They feel that people may become better than themselves, or that they will lose people to other teams. These are legitimate concerns and here is another perspective on these beliefs:

– If people on my team become better than me, it opens up plenty of opportunities: More opportunities to brainstorm effectively when looking for answers to challenges; more opportunities to have a varied skillset in the team, people with different strengths than mine and who can bring different opinions and value; more opportunities to have someone ready to step up into my role so I can get promoted to another role within the organization

– I would love to keep all my high performing people forever; is it serving the broader organization though? If I help people grow and they go to another team, then I have strong ambassadors of efficient leadership who may replicate with others what we have done together. What other reward for success could there be? I remember that while at HP in the early 2000’s, senior leaders’ performance were also evaluated through the lens of how many high performing employees they had let go to other teams. Maybe a model to follow for more companies?

My encouragement to you as a leader is you cannot be wrong by focusing on people’s growth. Let people learn, be empowered, get better than you at some things, and just enjoy that feeling of reward it will give you to witness that growth.

5. Ask for feedback about you

As you have read from the above, being in service of your team requires a high level of commitment and humility. Being an effective leader is rarely an opportunity for hubris to show up. As such, it is also my strong belief that one of the best ways to serve your team is to focus a great deal of your interactions on understanding how you can become more efficient as the leader of the team. The only way to do that is by asking your team to give you feedback about you and what you do. Specifically, ask them regularly these 3 questions:

– What am I doing that you want me to do more?
– What am I doing that you want me to do less?
– What do you want me to stop doing immediately?

Trust me, you will learn so much about you by asking these questions, and you will also entice good feedback, usually backed by specific examples. This feedback will allow you to correct the way you lead your team and improve the quality of how you serve the people on the team.

What about you? What do you do to be in service of your team? Please tell me in the comments what you have found to be effective ways for you.

For comments or questions, please visit my website or contact me at pascal@p-m-coaching.com