Leading up is the 360° leader’s greatest challenge. We’re accustomed to influence flowing from the top down, and, for that reason, leading up feels like running uphill. True enough, leading up requires extra effort. To exert influence upon those in authority above us calls for boldness, respect, and sacrifice. In the long run, the extra effort will distinguish you from the rest of the pack. Jack Welch calls this “getting out of the pile.” The following suggestions are ways to successfully catch the attention of those at the top.

To lead up, increase your value by helping to lift your leader’s load. Try to anticipate what your leader needs and wants. Occasionally, you may even approach your leader and ask, “What can I do for you today?” Always remember: when the boss succeeds, the organization succeeds. Ultimately, you can’t succeed if your boss fails.

Being a load lifter has its benefits. It demonstrates your dedication to the team, and displays gratitude for your position on the team. In easing your leader’s burden, you’ll be noticed and valued. At the same time, you’ll be playing a substantial role in helping the organization move forward.

1. Be sure to do your own job well before you concentrate on lifting your leader’s load.
If you drop your personal responsibilities, you’ll drag your leader down rather than propping them up.
2. When you find a problem, provide a solution.
If you only identify what is broken, you look no different than a complainer. Show initiative by repairing the problems you encounter.
3. Tell your leaders what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.
In the words of President Dwight Eisenhower: “A bold heart is half the battle.” Have the courage to speak your mind and confront difficult truths.
4. Go the second mile.
Be willing to arrive early, stay late, and do more than your share of work.
5. Stand up for your leader whenever you can.
Don’t become party to backbiting or criticism. Speak highly of your leaders and diffuse the negativity others may show toward them.
6. Stand in for your leader whenever you can.

Leading your peers is no simple task. It’s easy for an effective leader to lead followers, but leading across can be difficult—especially for highly productive people who might create feelings of jealousy or resentment among their peers. Effective 360° leaders give their colleagues reasons to respect and follow them. Because they lead across successfully, they are able to assist the people beside them, profit the organization, and advance themselves.

Leading peers is not a one-time event. It’s an ongoing process. When leading across, the temptation is to try to take the lead too quickly. Taking shortcuts or cheating the process will erode your respect from others rather than gaining influence with them.

1. Caring – Take an interest in people.
People always move toward anyone who increases them and away from anyone who decreases them.
2. Learning – Get to know people
Invest the time to understand the values that motivate your fellow leaders.
3. Appreciating – Respect people
Find and encourage the strengths unique to each of your colleagues. Assume they have your best interests in mind, and be open to their ideas and concerns.
4. Contributing – Add value to people
Few activities add to a leader’s credibility like the dedication to add value to the people around them – especially when the leader is neither obligated to add value nor receiving direct benefit from doing it. Adding value to peers lets them know that you are on their side and are cheering for them to win.
5. Verbalizing – Affirm people
To affirm signifies to make firm. An affirmation is a statement of truth you make firm by repetition. Affirmations enable others to believe in their dreams. For people to reach their potential, their dreams must become more real than their doubts.
6. Leading – Influence people
Understand, enlarge, and empower those who are leading beside you.
7. Succeeding – Win with People
When you succeed with people, you gain opportunities to influence even more people. The leadership loop completes a cycle and begins anew. As additional people enter your life, you must again choose to take an interest in them, get to know them, etc.

Dominant in the news and in political debate across the country, U.S. involvement in Iraq is a hot button issue and the subject of sharp disagreement. While politicians argue over everything from the war’s cost, to its military strategy, to its morality, one painful truth is agreed upon by all: Iraq is a mess.

Entering the fifth year of the U.S.-led occupation, America and its allies have suffered more than 3,500 causalities. Dwarfing the allied military losses, the Iraqi civilian death toll is approaching 70,000—with between 2,000 and 3,000 deaths occurring each month. In addition to security threats, many Iraqis are absent of electricity, sewage, or water. Many fear to go to work or are unable to do so due to a lack of jobs. Death squads of militias ruthlessly capture and torture members of opposing ethnic or religious groups, and suicide bombings routinely spread terror.

At the foundation of the struggle to rebuild Iraq lay the fissures of centuries of ethnic and religious conflict. Broadly speaking there are three main camps of Iraqis: Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs, and Kurds. Unfortunately, history has accounted for deep wounds, anger, and mistrust between the groups.

1. 600’s-2007: The struggle between Sunnis and Shiites stretches back over 14 centuries.
2. 1986-1989: Upwards of 50,000 Kurds died in Saddam Hussein’s campaign to remove the Kurds from Iraq. Kurdish Iraqis were placed in concentration camps, shot in front of firing squads, and the victims of chemical warfare.
3. 1991: In the wake of the Desert Storm military operation in 1991, Shiite Arabs in southern Iraq rebelled against Saddam Hussein. Thousands of Shiites were massacred as Saddam’s loyalists committed unthinkable atrocities against them.
4. 2006-2007: In a recent spree of violence, gangs of Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs have fought one another by: assassinating political leaders, destroying mosques and holy shrines, bombing marketplaces, and torturing and murdering civilians.

For the leaders in charge of reconstructing Iraqi society, reconciliation between Arabs and Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites holds the key to success. The same principle stands true for any leader taking charge of a new team. Managing differences among team members is vital to building a unified and effective team. Diversity enriches, but dissension destroys. Leaders have the responsibility of setting a tone of mutual respect, cordial communication, and polite disagreement. When deep grudges are inherent in the team, a leader must painstakingly guide the parties involved toward reconciliation.

In Iraq, Shiites outnumber Sunnis nearly two-to-one. Even so, the minority Sunnis have held political power for the past 1300 years. However, after the fall of Saddam Hussein and the introduction of democracy, the balance of power has reversed and Shiites finally enjoy the upper hand in Iraq’s government. For the past 25 years, Kurds have been persecuted and marginalized in Iraq. Now, in the new government, they find themselves in an unprecedented place of inclusion and power.

The fate of Iraq hinges upon the Shiite and Kurdish responsibility to protect the interests of the Sunni Arabs. With newfound power, each group will be tempted to consolidate its gains and to humiliate the Sunnis. However, subjugating the Sunni population will surely breed resentment and hostility. Only by respecting the rights of the Sunnis, will Iraq’s leaders be able to erase years of violent oppression toward disenfranchised people.

In any organization, managers compete to set strategic direction and lobby against one another for resources. At times, debate gets heated as two individuals spar for control. Inevitably, there are winners and losers. One manager wins support for their agenda, while another’s requests are denied.

For the victor, the temptation is to adopt an “I told you so,” attitude toward his or her opponent. The victor may leverage their favorable position for self-advancement rather than corporate progress. Or, the winner may use their advantage to deprive the loser of resources. Such selfish choices sabotage the organization. When gaining power, a leader’s proper response is to leverage it to serve the common good. Practically, this involves sharing power, staying attuned to minority points of view, and building consensus whenever possible. To the victor goes the tremendous responsibility to avoid the intoxication of power and to wield it for the benefit of all.

Requests come toward us from all directions, each seeking to place a demand on our time. Some requests are nagging and others enticing. Each lobbies for a spot on our schedule and pressures us for commitment. As leaders, how do we know when “no” is the way to go?

Our natural inclination is to say “yes” to almost every opportunity or call for help. For this reason, our lives become overextended, stressful, and unfocused. Rather than protecting our sanity by building margin into our schedule, we drive ourselves bonkers by committing to all manner of projects and activities.

There are three underlying fears driving us to say “yes.” First and foremost, we fear offending the person who is asking for our time. We don’t want to hurt our relationship with them, and it pains us to turn them down. A second fear is lost opportunity. We don’t want to miss out. We gravitate toward the center of the action, and opportunities seduce us with their promises of newness and excitement. A third fear is damaging our reputation. We like to be known as the reliable team member who can be counted on no matter what. We shudder to think of being viewed as a shirker or slacker if we refuse to take on more work.

To begin saying “no,” develop a filter for evaluating potential commitments and/or opportunities. Here are four suggested questions for filtering requests for your time.

With an impulse to improve the organization, a leader may end up dabbling in a wide range of projects. Although noble in intent, some projects can be a distraction from executing top priorities. Take care of definite job responsibilities first and perform them with excellence before embarking on additional ventures.

A house divided cannot stand, and a vision divided will likewise perish. Expending time on non-essential activities will split your focus and minimize your influence. Be wary of the allure of attractive but off-course opportunities.

In general, avoid commitments that drag you or your team away from what you do best. Be selective about where your time is invested. You’ll earn the greatest return by sticking with your strengths.

Put simply: be realistic. You can’t do everything, nor can you expect your team to have infinite capacity to take on additional projects. Consider creating metrics to identify the boundaries of what you or your team can reasonably expect to accomplish.

In her article, Getting to No, on Forbes.com, Hannah Clark gives advice on how to say “no.” Among her suggestions:

Oftentimes, even as we hang up the phone, we’re berating ourselves for agreeing to a commitment we would rather not have made. Clark recommends allowing yourself time and space to make a clear decision about a commitment: “To avoid agreeing to something you'll regret, try this mantra: ‘I'll have to check my schedule. Let me get back to you later.’ That gives you time to consider the request and respond on your own terms, by phone, e-mail, or in person.”

According to Clark, in saying “no,” don’t use excessive niceties when turning down the requester. Being overly kind can unintentionally invite the asker to push for a commitment rather than signaling your refusal.

For more tactics on saying “no,” read, Getting to No, by Hannah Clark at: http://www.forbes.com/2007/03/19/career-commitment-no-lead-careers-worklife07-cx-hc_0319no.html?boxes=popstories&boxes=custom

The Energy Bus is the story of George, a corporate manager whose life is falling apart. At home, his wife is threatening to leave. On the job, George is at odds with the team he’s trying to lead, in the doghouse with his supervisors, and behind on a major product launch which could seal his doom at the company.

With the deck already stacked against him, George’s car breaks down, forcing him to ride the bus to work for two weeks. Negative and pessimistic, little does George realize his time on the bus will revolutionize his leadership outlook.

On his first day riding the bus, George is taken aback by his peppy bus driver, Joy. She reads George’s emotions like a book and showers him with unwelcome advice about changing his poor attitude. After initially being annoyed by Joy, George becomes drawn to her energy and opens himself to her suggestions. As the story unfolds, Joy and her loyal bus passengers give George a two-week crash course in positive energy. By applying the lessons he learns, George reverses his fortunes at work, regains the trust of his team, and rescues his job.

Readers often latch onto stories that capture the imagination while subtly passing along lessons of wisdom. The Energy Bus is an entertaining tale, and the storyline lodges Gordon’s principles in the reader’s mind and makes them memorable. By employing a narrative style, Gordon makes his ideas stickier than the dry principles found within the point by point monotony of much business prose.

The Energy Bus conveys much wisdom in an easily readable and memorable language. As the author himself writes, “It’s the simplest lessons in life that are often the most profound and meaningful… one of the most important things you could ever realize is that the closer you get to truth, the simpler and more powerful the lessons become.” Gordon does a terrific job of compressing principles of positive attitude and energy into a fun-to-experience book.

This tale reminds the reader of valuable leadership lessons about staying positive and leading from the heart. Energy is contagious, and the reader will sense the infectious optimism of Gordon’s personality coming through the text. Pervasive in the book is Gordon’s fervent belief in a leader’s ability to alter the future by transforming their energy. Overall, The Energy Bus is an upbeat book with a strong message about the power of positive energy.

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”
~ Mother Teresa

“Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you.”
~ William Arthur Ward

“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

For more information on Dr. John C. Maxwell, please visit our website by clicking here. In our effort to become your new content provider, portions of Leadership Wired are often written by editors other than John C. Maxwell and do not necessarily reflect his opinions.

Leadership Wired is available via e-mail on a free subscription basis.

Questions about document transmission or editorial comments? Contact Feedback@INJOY.com.

Visitors may use the information contained in this e-newsletter by placing the following credit line:

"This article is used by permission from Dr. John C. Maxwell's free monthly e-newsletter 'Leadership Wired' available at www.injoy.com. "

This information cannot be used for resale in any manner.