Within Business Markers we work with hundreds of organizations across various industries, providing support to leaders and leadership teams facing various challenges. Through these experiences, we have identified common themes that have allowed us to distill leadership into different capabilities and characteristics, which we have integrated into our Business Markers Leadership model.
To grow an organization, you must grow your teams, and to grow your teams, you must first focus on your own growth. You can’t be a good leader if you are not taking good care of yourself, physically, mentally, as well as professionally.
We all have a different starting point as leaders, and we all have the potential to further grow, how experienced we might be. But what is that starting point? That’s why the basis for any leadership development is an honest self-reflection, and that’s why self-leadership is at the heart of our leadership model.
In this part you will be invited to explore your resilience and motivation, your emotional intelligence to collaborate and work with feedback, and your appetite to learn and grow.
Leadership is a balancing act between leading, and following your team in order to lead. Leadership implies a responsibility to deliver growth, for both the business and the people in the team. And in order to be successful at both, you need to try to capture the collective wisdom of the team, while matching the energy and talent in your team as best as possible with the organization’s requirements.
We have clustered the necessary leadership capabilities to get you there around your three main tasks as a leader: your need to inspire, organize, and enable.
Within your task to inspire, you need to start from a compelling vision, inviting the people around you to get on board and take initiative, while setting the tone in terms of how you lead by example. You need to act as a leader.
Besides inspiring, you also need to organize your team. You need to build cohesive and productive work and project teams in order to achieve the required outputs, either as a work unit or as a component within the organization. You need to manage.
Your final task as a leader is to enable. You have an active role to create a climate in which others thrive, both individually and collectively. You are the coach.
Leadership doesn’t only apply to your direct reports or the people around you. Your leadership also resonates throughout the whole organization, as well as outside of the organization to impact its ecosystem.
As a leader, you are a role model and your leadership will inspire more than your team members. This implies a responsibility toward the ecosystem of your organization, both from the perspective of a (possible) collaboration as well as from your impact on all your stakeholders. Your organization does not operate on an island. You cannot shy away from the role you play and have to play within society, taking into account the impact of your words and your actions on this and future generations.
To grow an organization, you must grow your teams, and to grow your teams, you must first focus on your own growth. You can’t be a good leader if you are not taking good care of yourself, physically, mentally, as well as professionally.
We all have a different starting point as leaders, and we all have the potential to further grow, how experienced we might be. But what is that starting point? That’s why the basis for any leadership development is an honest self-reflection, and that’s why self-leadership is at the heart of our leadership model.
In this part you will be invited to explore your resilience and motivation, your emotional intelligence to collaborate and work with feedback, and your appetite to learn and grow.
Actively builds self-knowledge & resilience, and manages own motivation & wellbeing
Has emotional intelligence to work with feedback
Knows importance of learning agility, keeps own curve steep
Articulates the vision & strategic plan in a compelling way
Challenges the status quo, manages resistance, and takes a stand
Leads by example
Communicates with impact
Develops others by installing a feedback culture
Manages performance, and delivers above and beyond
Creates clarity & discipline
Sets goals, roles & responsibilities
Builds healthy high-performing teams
Leads in a purposeful & value-driven way
Owns & impacts the ecosystem
Is contagiously courageous
Promotes a learning culture
Ensures swift collaboration within the organization
Empowers ownership & decisiveness
Encourages trust & psychological safety
Stimulates a culture of care & wellbeing
Is open-minded and drives diversity, inclusion & belonging