Historically leaders have always had to portray a tough image. But this must change if we want to lead change, increase productivity, improve results, build trust, and increase our positive influence.

What are your values? Do you know your values, and do you live by them? It is your values that will influence your people to follow you because they want to or because they have to. You have the position of leader, and you have probably been told what needs to be managed and how to manage your team.

1. Your Values

But how do you lead? You must make that decision because your job position is not who you are. The position does not define you; you define the position. So, how do you lead?

To climb the leadership ladder, the only person who can help you do that is you. You can either climb up the ladder very fast, or you can take forever with huge weights around your ankles holding you back.

It all comes down to your leadership style and your values. What people experience of your external is who you are in your internal.

DOWNLOAD MY FREE E-BOOK “INSPIRE YOUR PEOPLE”

When I was hired to do my first leadership role with a team, and for the roles following that, it was because they thought I was going to bring in great changes within a few days. They thought I was some amazing leader who just knew how to turn organisations around.

But how could I do that if I didn’t know them, their departments within huge railway businesses, or their teams? That is a problem that is seen in lots of businesses in lots of industries throughout the world. The expectations on new “leaders” are far too high.

2. Leadership Styles

I’m going to share with you a story about two engineering managers who had very different leadership styles and lived by very different values.

This was the time I was based in Scotland and working for their train operating company. I worked with a lot of engineering managers and supervisors during my time in Scotland, but two stand out for me.

One was the engineering depot manager based in Edinburgh called Steve, and one was the engineering depot manager based in Glasgow called Stuart.

Steve had been at the company for a lot longer than Stuart and had more experience in being a depot manager. It was Steve who interviewed me first and hired me as an engineering production manager and brought me to Scotland, which I am still truly grateful to him for that opportunity.

When I started the role of engineering production manager, I was off and running right into the deep end. When things went wrong, Steve was asking what was going on. He wouldn’t be asking politely though; it would be in a very aggressive and scary tone.

Part of my job was to work shifts (day shift, back shift and night shift), and no matter what shift you were on, there was no getting away from Steve. On the day shift, he was in the depot so if something went wrong, he would be in your face.

If it was on back shift or night shift, he would be on the phone, no matter what time it was.

When he hired me, he told me that he brought me up to Scotland to make changes and a lot of changes were needed because they had been running the same way for many years. The train operating company wanted to see improvements and you can’t improve if you keep do the same things all the time.

The only problem was, I was 28 years old, and I had only ever had one job in a leadership position as a project manager. This engineering depot in Edinburgh needed somebody with experience and a new vision.

I wanted the engineering production manager job because I wanted to grow my leadership experience and throw myself into the deep end, but not this deep.

When I started my new role in the Edinburgh engineering depot, the engineering teams on the shop floor were not very warm to me in the beginning.

Over time our relationship improved but they obviously feared change, and bringing a new engineering production manager into the depot was a change they didn’t want to see.

But I did my best to change their perception of me by being the best engineering production manager I could be. I didn’t want an “us and them” relationship between the management team and the engineers.

The relationship between the engineering production management team and Steve the engineering depot manager did feel like “us and them”, and I felt we only followed him because we had to.

We very rarely went the extra mile for Steve because he didn’t empower us or inspire us to do so, which I hate to say. Steve was a micro-manager of people, not a leader of people.

After I had been in Edinburgh for two years working as an engineering production manager, there was an opportunity to take a job in the Glasgow engineering depot as an engineering performance manager.

So, I applied for that role because I wanted a new challenge, change, and I wanted to see what Glasgow could offer as a place to live. Anyway, I got the job as engineering performance manager, and I made the move from Edinburgh to Glasgow.

3. Responsibility

This is when I met the Glasgow engineering depot manager Stuart, and straight away I knew he was different. He was younger than Steve but still had good experience because he had been the engineering depot manager in a different location in Scotland.

When I saw him talking to his engineering production managers, he wasn’t in their face if something went wrong and blaming anybody. He took responsibility for when things went wrong and gave out credit when things went right.

In my first conversation with Stuart, we talked about football in the beginning. He is a Motherwell (team in Scotland) fan, and I am a Liverpool (best team in the world 😊) fan. I felt this was a great way to begin our relationship because we were building the foundation of leadership…trust, straight away.

I could tell and so could he that our working relationship was going to go well, and so was our personal relationship. Stuart was and still is a leader of people, not a manager of people.

4. Empowerment

Steve’s leadership style was to come into the depot in the morning and take control of his team. Stuart’s leadership style was to come into the depot in the morning and empower his team. Steve’s style was to give orders to us and during the morning team brief do most of the talking.

Stuart’s style was to ask questions during the morning meeting and do most of the listening. This is when I first learned how to lead people when I moved to Glasgow. Stuart is one of my favourite examples of a highly effective engineering leader.

The more I worked alongside Stuart, the more I learned how to be a highly effective engineering leader.

Steve hired me to come into his depot and make all the changes for him, without knowing exactly what changes he wanted to see. Stuart became engineering depot manager in Glasgow because he knew he could lead the right changes with his team to make things better.

Steve didn’t really want changes, but he knew he had to make some kind of change otherwise he would probably be replaced, which he eventually was.

DOWNLOAD MY FREE E-BOOK “INSPIRE YOUR PEOPLE”

After I had been in the Glasgow engineering depot for a few weeks, it was time for me to start working with the different teams and build trust with them. I started to do this in the same way I did with Stuart and talking about things outside of work.

I was doing my best to connect on a personal level first so that the teams would feel at ease when talking to me. I knew that I would be increasing my influence in a positive way through building trust and helping the teams.

I was in the Glasgow engineering depot for 2 years, and it was obvious to me that all the engineering teams followed Stuart because they wanted to. I followed Stuart because I wanted to, and I keep in touch with him to this day. We went the extra mile for Stuart, for ourselves and for all our teams.

I have modelled my leadership style firstly on what I was learning from Stuart in Glasgow, and then from what I was learning through my own leadership education. If you can have a similar influence on your team as Stuart did, then you are most certainly on the right path to becoming a highly effective leader.

Being a boss isn’t what people want. Being a leadership coach is what people want.

I welcome hearing how this post has influenced the way you think, the way you lead, or the results you have achieved because of what you’ve learned in it. Please feel free to share your thoughts with me by commenting below.

Check out my other articles by Clicking HERE

All the best,

Tom (Lead, Grow, Influence)