Fine Lines is a weekly newsletter at the intersection of organisational prosperity and human development - for leaders who have already tried the obvious fixes and are now asking better questions. Each Tuesday: one idea from real experience and research, examined with enough rigour to be useful and enough honesty to sting slightly. The equation running underneath every edition: Capability × Ability = Performance. Most interventions address the Ability side. Fine Lines addresses the variable nobody is measuring. If you want frameworks and inspiration there are better newsletters. If you want your thinking challenged and, occasionally, your assumptions dismantled then you are in the right place.
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You Stand Out. But how will you STAY AHEAD?
Published about 2 years ago • 7 min read
August 9, 2024
Hey Reader
Good to have you back for another ‘Fine Lines’ & welcome to all our new subscribers.
Let’s follow on from last week’s edition where we spoke about how you can ‘Stand Out’.
Your Read Time is = 5 minutes
At a Glance....
Stay Ahead - How you can lead from the front of the pack.
A Masters Voice - Leadership Lessons from passage of books I've read.
The natural transition from this is to “Stay Ahead”.
But that’s often misunderstood. There’s connotations of aloofness & air of superiority. That’s not quite correct. It’s simply your natural progression once you step into your power and stand out from the crowd.
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You Stand Out, but will you Stay Ahead?
Image Credit: Ahmet Kurt
Staying Ahead, in the most positive sense, is a curious juxtaposition. You’re the same as your peers but different. But that’s ok.
In a world of beige where following the crowd tends to be the default, it’s not enough to just be good at what you do. Competence merely gets you to the table; it doesn’t mean you eat. No, it’s vital to develop and promote what makes you different. Especially in order to stay ahead in a very competitive space.
That said, I’d stress that this should be done from a place of positive motivation. Too many use this drive for one-upmanship and that becomes very clear, very soon. There’s a real upside to staying ahead. You not only distance yourself from the crowd but you afford yourself the opportunity to make an impact because you’ve earned the interest & attention of people who matter.
So assuming you want to put some daylight between yourself and others (without engaging in much of the online showbiz that we see daily), what are you to do?
You need to develop. Consistently. It needs to be a top priority and a daily focus.
However…..
And this is not to upset anyone but there’s something 90% of leaders in sport don’t get.
Any time I utter those words I raise heckles and get cold stares. No doubt there may be a few “unsubscribes” after this.
The majority of you who are engaged in your development aren’t getting bang for your buck. You are NOT helping yourself to get ahead & stay ahead.
Why?
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You’re largely engaged in horizontal development. And that ain’t gonna get you competitive advantage among the bigger hitters. Horizontal development majors in competency i.e. ‘in the job’ skills.
Of course those are important. You’ll be stuck at launch without them. They’re a given, but too much focus on competency only is to the detriment of the real fuel for staying ahead.
You’re missing vertical development. It’s the force multiplier that will give you escape velocity from mediocrity and propel you at speed into the orbit where the top 10% of your peers operate. They’re not any more talented than you (trust me!); just smarter in terms of knowing where to invest their time. It’s why they are aspirational and, often, inspirational. And why they stay ahead.
Of course they manage to improve ‘in the job’ - that’s the bread & butter. But they place a HUGE focus on two complementary aspects; their Character & Capability. I.e. their ‘on the job’ qualities.
Think of the sports leaders you aspire to emulate. The bits that lure you in. Make you curious. The x-factors that make you think “if only I were more like him/her”
Again, they are often masters of their craft. But what really distinguishes them are the multiplier factors.
How they connect to consistently & contagiously infuse their people with confidence and conviction.
Think of Staying Ahead as an equation - let’s call it your Performance Quotient
Performance = C x C x C [Competence x Character x Capability]
Now can you see that your professional Competence is only valuable to the extent that it can be compounded by Capability and Character?
Without a weighted focus on boosting how you’d rate your Character & Capability qualities your overall Performance Quotient will hover between low and average.
And that’s the source of most of the unease, turmoil and dissonance of many, many sports leaders. You are confused to the point of being demoralised because you know you’re competence makes you stand out but you’re not sure why you aren’t achieving the same recognition and upward curve that some of your peers do.
You feel that. You’ll often feel unsettled & stale and have a nagging sense of being incomplete as a result of a gap that needs to be filled. You’re not alone.
And generally formal leadership or coaching education pathways don’t fill the void. They lead you down a dead end.
Where to from here?
Often the answers are quite simple. But that doesn’t mean easy, as the key is immersing consistently in these factors through focused time investment. Think of it as putting in the reps to make your “Stay Ahead” muscle stronger.
As a start, consider some of these practical ways you can develop your character and capability traits. They’re simply and easy to implement. But that’s the point. I see that many people who’ve been anchored need an almost effortless start point to gain some vital momentum:
Seek Out Mentors and Coaches
Finding experienced leaders who can provide guidance, advice, and feedback is invaluable for personal growth. Reach out to successful leaders and ask if they would be willing to meet periodically as a mentor. An external coach will also provide an objective, independent perspective on your leadership strengths and areas for improvement.
Engage in Reflective Practice
Set aside time regularly to reflect on your experiences, decisions, and interactions. Ask yourself questions like "What went well in that meeting/session and why?", "How could I have handled that situation differently?", and "What did I learn from that?" Keeping a daily journal can help you study your actions, capture insights & track your progress over time.
Seek and Act on Feedback
Proactively ask your team & peers for feedback on your leadership. Be open to constructive criticism and use it as an opportunity for growth. Follow up on feedback by creating a development plan and taking concrete steps to improve.
Read Widely
Read books, articles, and blogs by respected leadership thinkers and practitioners. More so materials that are outside of your immediate field; you’ll be amazed at the transferability and cross-pollination. Watch out for my upcoming e-book that will recommend 15 books to support your learning and positive action.
Workshops and Conferences
Look for workshops, webinars, and conferences that focus on leadership development. You’ll be amazed at the amount of these globally that have only a small cover charge. Equally there are many US universities that offer free online courses - check out these 8 free courses as a start point. You’ll gain fresh perspectives, and network with other leaders of similar motivation.
Experiment
Don't just learn about leadership in theory - put it into practice. Experiment with new leadership behaviours and approaches in your day-to-day work. Then seek out feedback from your team on how these experiments are going. Iterate and refine your approach based on what you learn. Sure, some experiments may not work out as planned sometimes but there’s rich learning there.
Develop Awareness
Invest the time to understand yourself. Getting a firm grasp of the character traits you are overplaying or underplaying is a great start. Ditto understanding your capability levels that dictate how well you are able to express your ability. After all, if you aren’t an expert on yourself how can you set about meaningful improvement?
To Stay Ahead, the key is to get, and keep, moving forward. While the majority are scrambling around solely focused in the day-to-day busyness you can push ahead by focusing on your bigger picture.
Do you truly want to Stay Ahead? Assuming that’s a “100% yes”, then you’ve got to have an action-bias. Take those small, simple, seemingly innocuous steps. They're the ones very few others consistently take - bar those that everyone aspires to.
You need to propel yourself and make your development an ongoing priority. Nobody in the chasing pack will.
Thanks for reading. It’s great to get your emails during the week to fuel some insights & debate. Please feel free to email me at pclarkeperform@gmail.com or better, let’s arrange a Zoom call.
A Master's Voice....
"Stand Out" leaders plan well. "Stay Ahead" leaders plan well...and then enter into some 2nd Order Thinking. They live in the future and ask "And then what??" in terms of all the possible scenarios, good and undesirable, that their plans & actions may manifest. These type of leaders not only Stand Out, they proactively Stay Ahead by foreseeing scenarios and then editing plans accordingly.
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"Fine Lines" - For leaders in commercial, sport & volunteer-led organisations who'd rather be told the truth than told they're doing fine. We talk weekly about human performance under sustained pressure.
Fine Lines is a weekly newsletter at the intersection of organisational prosperity and human development - for leaders who have already tried the obvious fixes and are now asking better questions. Each Tuesday: one idea from real experience and research, examined with enough rigour to be useful and enough honesty to sting slightly. The equation running underneath every edition: Capability × Ability = Performance. Most interventions address the Ability side. Fine Lines addresses the variable nobody is measuring. If you want frameworks and inspiration there are better newsletters. If you want your thinking challenged and, occasionally, your assumptions dismantled then you are in the right place.
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