How To Be a Star Leader In a Competitive Corporate World

Standing Out Is Crucial

Standing out as a star leader is incredibly important in your journey to senior leadership in any competitive corporate world, but in market-leading giants it is absolutely crucial.

Only those who can manage people effectively, and show it, will be considered for the highest positions such as executives, senior executives, and the hallowed c-suite.

The earlier you can attract attention for strong leadership, the better. Being known as a strong leader will elevate you above your peers. You will be earmarked as a high performer with potential. You’ll get access to more opportunities than those around you which will allow you to shine even more.

Standing head and shoulders above the rest will open more doors for you, and get you on the radar of the decision makers.

Generate Buzz About Yourself

One of the best ways to get noticed is for other people to start talking about you. This is how you will be considered for more opportunities.

Mentoring roles, speaking opportunities, leading projects, turning around poor performing teams.

Say yes to these opportunities when they are offered. Talk about them when you get the chance.

You will hear about it when people have been championing you!

Seven Tips to Stand Out As a Star Leader

1. Be results driven

Spend plenty of time orienting your team around delivering results quickly. Delivering results outweighs being liked, developing your people, and pretty much everything else. So focus unwaveringly on building this culture.

This will be the ultimate test of your motivational skills, do it right and your team will be so fired up they will provide the wave you can ride to the top.

2. Talk about your successes

Whether it comes naturally to you or not, whether it feels comfortable or not, talking about your successes openly outside of your team is absolutely essential. Like it or not, if you don’t discuss your successes no-one else will.

Focus on the benefits you have delivered and call out the impact this has had. Don’t wait until your end of year review to talk about this stuff. If no-one knows what you’re working on you just won’t be visible.

3. Demand high performance from your team

Don’t be soft with your team members, along with being results driven on a team level ensure each person is delivering their fair share. Be very clear about your expectations of performance levels.

Make sure your team members are clear at all times on how they are doing against these and if they are underperforming address this with them early. If they are doing well likewise recognise them for this, there is always room for improvement at any level so keep them fired up in a positive way.

4. Talk to your team members individually about their career aspirations and do something about it

You are demanding their best, so the least you can do is understand their aspirations, and help them to get there. Having these conversations and making the effort to direct the type of work that will help someone progress will also be a great bonding experience, and will help to achieve high levels of motivation.

5. Push for your team to be included in exciting projects

As well as championing your team as a whole it’s important to push individual members forward for high profile assignments. These might be stretch opportunities or secondments which could have nothing to do with the normal work activities of the person. For this you’ll need to have a good understanding of their strengths and weaknesses and think laterally about what growth opportunities would work for them.

6. Focus on revenue generation and innovation

It is well known that areas which generate revenue for the business will have more budget and more resources to play with. The opportunities for innovation are usually higher and breaking new ground is exciting and attention grabbing.

If you’re in an area that is a cost to the business it will be way more challenging for you to get the limelight through no fault of your own. Cost savings can help of course, but revenue generation is way sexier to your leaders.

7. Openly champion your team

Make a habit of recognizing your team members for the results they have delivered. Use mediums such as mentions in team meetings, crediting them for project delivery, using formal recognition schemes – all of these attract attention. The more recognition you give the better. Your team will get that warm and fuzzy feeling which is very motivational.

This will also be noticed by your senior leaders. They will notice when you recognize someone how much this means to your people. Be fair with your recognition, ensure you don’t focus all the love on one person otherwise your attempts at good recognition will definitely backfire.

Remind Yourself With This Handy Infographic

To help you remember these seven tips, I’ve created this cool infographic for you. Go ahead and print it for your desk.