Principles and Practices of a

Leader
Practice to Lead Up

MA. THELMA B. EBIAS

Ph.D. – EM Student
 PRACTICE TO LEAD UP PRINCIPLES
OVERVIEW:
1. Lead Yourself Exceptionally Well
2. Lighten Your Leader’s Load
3. Be Willing To Do What Others Won’t
4. Do More Than Manage – Lead!
5. Invest In Relational Chemistry
6. Be Prepared Every Time You Take Your
Leader’s Time
7. Know When To Push And When To Back
Off
8. Become A Go-To Player
9. Be Better Tomorrow Than You Are Today
360-Degree Leaders are all-around leaders. As
one, leading up can be the greatest challenge.
“Most leaders want to lead, not be led. But
most leaders also want to have value added to
them. If you take the approach of wanting to add
value to those above you, you have the best
chance of influencing them.”

-John C. Maxwell
 #1 – LEAD YOURSELF EXCEPTIONALLY
WELL
• “The Key to leading yourself well is to learn self-
management”. In order to be successful, we must
make the right decisions early and manage those
decisions daily. Then, we are prepared to follow
through on them with consistency.
• Most people put too much emphasis on decision making
and too little on decision managing. As a result, they
lack focus, discipline, intentionality, and purpose.
 7 Areas A Leader Must Self-Manage
1. Manage your emotions - Put others first and
ask, “What is best for the team?” Good
leaders know when to display emotions and
when to delay them.
2. Manage your time - What is the best use of
your time? What has value and meaning?
“Until you value yourself, you won’t value your
time.
3. Manage your priorities - 80% of the time – work where
you are strongest
- 15% of the time – work where
you are learning
- 5% of the time – work in other
necessary areas
4. Manage your energy - Avoid energy drains. The
greatest enemy of good thinking is
busyness. Activity without direction
 The ABC’s Energy Drain:

Activity Energy Direction – doing things that

don’t seem to matter
Burden Without Action – not being able to do
things that really matter
Conflict Without Resolution – not being able
to deal with what’s the matter
5. Manage your thinking – a minute of thinking is
often more valuable than an hour of talk or
unplanned work.
6. Manage your words – “The power of words is
immense. A well-chosen word has often
sufficed to stop a flying army, to change defeat
into victory, and to save an empire.” If you wish
to make sure that your words carry weight,
then weigh them well. If you manage your
thinking and take advantage of focused think-
time, you will probably see improvement in the
area of managing your words too.
7. Manage your personal life – What would it profit
a leader to climb to the tope of the organizational
chart but to lose a marriage or alienate the
children? “Success is having those closest to me
love and respect me the most. That is what is
most important, I want the love and respect of my
wife, my children, and my grandchildren before I
want the respect of anyone I work with. Don’t get
me wrong, I want the people who work with me to
respect me too, but not at the expense of my
family.” (John C. Maxwell)
 #2 – LIGHTEN YOUR LEADER’S LOAD
“When the boss succeeds, the organization succeeds.
Conversely, it is almost impossible for you to win if your boss
fails”.
As an employee, you can do one of two things for your leader.
You can make the load lighter, or you can make it heavier. It’s
similar to the Elevator Principle in Winning with People: “We
can lift people up, to take people down in our relationships.”
If you help lift the load, then you help your leader succeed.
 How to Lift Your Leader’s Load?
• Do your own job well first.
• When you find a problem, provide a solution.
• Tell leaders what they need to hear, not what they
want to hear.
• Go the second mile.
• Stand up for your leader whenever you can.
• Stand in for your leader whenever you can.
• Ask your leader how you can lift the load.
 Positive Benefits from Helping Lift the
Leader’s Load:
• Lifting shows you are a team player
• Lifting shows gratitude for being on the
team
• Lifting makes you part of something bigger
• Lifting gets you noticed
• Lifting increases your value and influence
 #3 – BE WILLING TO DO WHAT OTHERS
WON’T
“Successful people do the things that unsuccessful
people are unwilling to do.”
-JOHN C. MAXWELL
A leader must be willing and able to think outside of
their job description, to be willing to tackle the kinds of
jobs that others are too proud or too frightened to take
on.
“Few things gain the appreciation of a top leader
more quickly than an employee with a whatever-it-takes
attitude.”
THINGS TO DO TO BE A 360-DEGREE LEADER
WHO LEADS UP:
• Take the tough jobs. You learn resiliency and tenacity
during tough assignments, not easy ones. When tough
choices have to be made and results are difficult to
achieve, leaders are forged.
• Pay their dues. You have to pay the price. You will find
that everything in life exacts a price, you will have to
decide whether the price is worth the prize. “Nobody
who ever gave their best ever regretted it” (NFL Legend
George Halas)
• Work in obscurity. It is a of personal integrity. The key
is being willing to do something because it matters, not
because it will get noticed.
• Succeed with difficult people. Leaders who learn to lead
up, across and down-find a way to succeed with people
who are hard to work with. Why do they do it?
Because it benefits the organization. How do they do
it? They work at finding common ground and connect
with them. And instead of putting these difficult people
in their place, they try to put themselves in their place.
• Put themselves on the line. You don’t have the
right to put the organization on the line…if you
are going to take a risk, you need to put yourself
on the line.
• Admit faults but never make excuses. It’s easier
to move from failure to success than from
excuses to success. Essentially there are two
actions in life: Performance and excuses. Make
a decision as to which you will accept from
yourself.
• Do more than expected. If you do more than is expected of
you, you stand out, and often there can be wonderful
serendipitous results.
• Are the first to step up and help. The first person to volunteer is
a hero and is given the “10” treatment. The second person is
considered a helper and viewed as only slightly above average.
The third person, along with everyone after, is seen as a follower
and is ignored.
It doesn’t matter whom you’re helping, whether it’s your boss, a
peer, or someone working for you. When you help someone on
the team, you help the whole team. And when you help the
team, you’re helping your leaders. And that gives them reasons
to notice and appreciate you.
• Perform tasks that are “not their job”. Good
leaders don’t think in those terms. The goal is
more important than the role.
• Take responsibility for their responsibilities. Isn’t
that the way a lot of people think these days?
Their knee-jerk reaction to adversity is to blame
someone else. That’s not the case with 360-
Degree Leaders. They take hold of their
responsibilities and follow through with them 100
percent.
#4 – DO MORE THAN MANAGE – LEAD!
“Managers work with processes – leaders work with
people.” Both are necessary to make an organization run
smoothly, but they have different functions.
As Tom Mullin said, “Leaders must be good managers, but
most managers are not necessarily good leaders.” Leadership is
more than management. Leadership is:
• People more than projects
• Movement more than maintenance
• Art more than science
 • Intuition more than formula
• Vision more than procedure
• Risk more than caution
• Action more than reaction
• Relationships more than rules
• Who you are more than what you do
If you want to influence others, then you must
learn to led.
 MOVING BEYOND MANAGEMENT:
• Leader think longer term – Most people evaluate events in
their lives according to how they will be personally affected.
Leaders think within a broader context. A -360 Degree
Leaders focus on more than just the task at hand and see
more than just the current moment. They look ahead,
whether it be a few hours, a few days, or a few years.
• Leaders see within the larger context – Leaders see their
area as part of the larger process and understand how the
pieces of the larger puzzle fit together. If you desire to be
a better leader, then broaden your thinking and work at
seeing things from a larger perspective.
• Leaders push boundaries – They desire to find a better
way. They want to make improvements. They like to
see progress. All these things mean making changes,
retiring old rules, inventing new procedures. Leaders
are constantly asking, “Why do we do it this way?” and
saying, “let’s try this.” Leaders want to take new
territory, and that means crossing boundaries.
• Leaders put the emphasis on intangibles – Leadership is
really a game of intangibles. What could be more
intangible than influence? Leaders deal with things like
morale, motivation, momentum, emotions, attitudes,
atmosphere, and timing. They have to become
comfortable – more than that, confident, - dealing with
such things.
• Leaders learn to rely on intuition – “Trust your
hunches. They’re usually based on facts filed away
just below the conscious level.”
• Leaders invest power in others – Good leaders give
their power away. They look for good people, and
they invest in them to the point where they can be
released and empowered to perform. The better the
leaders, the more delighted they are to see
members of the team finding their own new ways to
get things done. And in the case of the best
leaders…if some of the people outshine the leaders
who empowered them, then all the better.
• Leaders see themselves as agents of change –
Leaders don’t want things to stay the same.
They desire innovation. They love new
challenges. They want more than just seeing
progress – they want to help make it happen.
Leadership is a moving target, and it always
will be. If you desire to become a better leader,
get comfortable with change. And if you want to
lead up, learn to think like a leader. Think people,
think progress, and think intangibles.