4 Ways to Invest Your Leadership Capital

There are four major activities that will consume your leadership capital. Depending on your team, you’ll have a different mix of these activities.

There are four major activities that will consume your leadership capital. They’re directing work, doing work, delivering work and developing people:

Directing work

Directing including planning where you translate your vision into individual goals and activities. Prioritizing which is turning individual goals into team priorities. And coordinating using your position to provide broader perspective to the members of your team and help them see how their work fits into that broader picture.

Doing work

Doing is comprised of deciding where you as the leader have to make decisions that can’t be made by the members of your team. Motivating, inspiring your team members to do difficult things. And clearing, helping your team members overcome the roadblocks they’re going to face.

Delivering work

Delivering consists of monitoring where you’re tracking team progress against goals and objectives. Correcting where you’re fixing work that wasn’t done right the first time. And repairing where you’re repairing damage when mistakes are made. You’ll have to smooth over some relationships that get damaged when they make those mistakes.

Developing people

Developing includes training where you’re teaching new skills and building the capabilities of your team members. Coaching where you’re building their confidence and their capabilities by helping them understand how they need to grow. And promoting, advancing your team members’ careers by positioning them for growth.

Depending on your team, you’ll have a different mix of these activities but these activities comprise for the most part what’s expected of all good leaders.

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