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What is an Everyday Leader?
Everyday leaders sit low in an organizational chart, often considered worker bees without any formal leadership responsibilities. While they have no authority to enforce policies or approve timesheets or vacation days, they continuously evaluate their work environment looking for inefficiencies and sub-optimal processes. They notice how the team is performing and how their teammates are doing. They consistently ask questions like:
- Are our customers happy?
- Is the team collaborating effectively?
- How could our work be done more efficiently?
And as soon as an everyday leader sees an opportunity for improvement, they proactively find solutions and implement them. Instead of waiting to be told to fix the problem by someone with authority, everyday leaders take the initiative to solve it themselves.
Everyday leaders find small ways to inspire and improve the team, injecting good vibes and helping the team be more productive, innovative, and healthy. Read on for three tips for becoming an everyday leader.
Tip #1: Promote a collaborative environment with a “Yes, And…” mindset
If you are noticing that the word NO is often used and that many teammates are quiet or hesitant to share ideas, this tip is for you.
During your next brainstorming session or conversation with a teammate, try the “Yes, And…” improv comedy technique. Avoid making statements like “I don’t think that will work.” Instead accept and expand the ideas of your teammates with phrases like:
- “Tell me more.”
- “I like that idea, and..”
- “How could that work?”
- “What is making you think that?”
- “What are some of the benefits of that approach?”
Learn more at Wikipedia and see Tina Fey give her take.
This technique improves your listening skills, makes team interactions more lighthearted, and establishes you as an approachable teammate. Plus it boosts your creativity.
Tip #2: Build trust among team members with the “total football” approach
If your team normally collaborates like a relay team (meaning a task is passed from person to person and each person makes a specific contribution to the task and then hands it to the next person), this tip is for you. Instead of collaborating like a relay team try a total football approach.
Total football is a fluid system that allows any outfield player to take over the role of a teammate. In 2023, this system was featured in season 3 of the Ted Lasso series. Learn more at Wikipedia.
To put this into action, proactively offer help to your teammates and show a genuine interest in how they are doing.
- If a teammate is going on vacation, ask them “Is there anything I can handle while you are away?”
- When a teammate works on something interesting to you, say “I’m really interested in the work you are doing, can you show me what you have done so far?”
- Build trust by asking “How are things going for you?”
This approach has several benefits. If a teammate needs to miss work unexpectedly, another teammate can fill-in. If someone is curious about learning a new skill, the team will support that activity. It also shifts the responsibility to each teammate to stay aware of how everyone is doing and offer support when needed.
Tip #3: Overcome the fear of uncertainty with “Fermi Estimates”
If your team is unable to estimate “When will TASK A be finished” because it seems as hard to answer as “How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?” or “How many pennies would it take to make a stack the height of the Empire State Building?” then this technique is for you.
“Fermi Estimates” is an estimation technique named after the famous physicist Enrico Fermi who was well known for giving approximations even in the absence of data. You may have seen Enrico Fermi portrayed in the movie Oppenheimer and there is more info about him at Wikipedia.
The idea is to make a series of assumptions that will lead you to a back-of-the-napkin estimate. WIRED Magazine has some great step-by-step examples.
This approach has several benefits. If done as a group activity, it lets every teammate contribute based on their area of expertise. And also it creates a lot of energy around a project or task kick-off. It can really motivate the team to start with something big and unknown and break it down into something smaller that is achievable.
Conclusion
Everyone, regardless of their job title, can be a leader. Being an everyday leader means taking the time to notice what could be improved and finding small ways to make those improvements. You don’t need permission or a formal leader to tell you what to do.