Step 1 – Be Self Aware

The first step in being a leader is to know yourself.  What do you bring to your workplace?  What are your strengths?  What do you need to work on to be a better leader?  An honest assessment is what is needed.  Not overly critical and not glossing over stuff that needs work.  

You will need to ask others for feedback about how you are coming across and what they observe when they watch you at work.  Example:  I have a tendency to be a poor listener, wanting to jump ahead to conclusions or start talking too soon, assuming I get the point.  Sometimes I have responded by using humour when I should have been more careful.  Good colleagues have pointed these things out to me so I could work on them.

An option is to ask for a formal 360 evaluation.  This is a process where the people that report to you, your peers and your bosses provide feedback that is then packaged up and provided to you.  If you do this, pay the most attention to what your reports have to say.  They are the ones who know the most about how you really lead.