Are you an impactful leader or a paycheck leader within your organization? In order to answer that question, you first need to understand what they both are. An Impactful Leader is someone who invests time and effort to develop their employees; which in return helps them reach company goals faster. The opposite of this is what I call a Paycheck Leader; someone who only does what their paycheck requires them to do, and unfortunately, paycheck leaders only produce paycheck employees. With paycheck leaders, you will see low-morale, low-engagement, and low-productive work environments. With impactful leaders, you will see what every CEO dreams of within their organization: High-morale, high-engagement and highly productive work environments. So the question is, which one of these describes YOUR team?

Unfortunately, paycheck leaders have become the standard in today’s workforce, and if it continues, we will start to see more unmanageable teams that cause their companies to suffer financially. They will take a financial hit through high turnover rates, poor reviews and loss of customers due to lack of training. When a team is failing to meet company goals, there’s only one person the CEO looks to and that’s the leader. Becoming an impactful leader should be the #1 concern on every manager’s agenda. So how do you know whether you’re an impactful leader or a paycheck leader?

(Watch the short video to learn the 4 questions a leader can ask to determine if they’re an impact leader!)

Here are 4 questions to ask yourself to determine which one you are:

Does my team respect me? People don’t want to follow a perfect leader but they do want to follow a good leader. Someone who displays traits they respect and accomplishments they admire. If your employees were to describe you in 3 words, would their description show they respect who you are or despise who you are?
Does my team trust me? Trust in leadership has 2 different meanings. First, can people trust your word? Integrity lives in the heart of great leaders and is the foundation for building trust with others. Second, your employees want to trust that you will coach them to their full potential and help them be successful within your organization. Are you leaving them to fend for themselves or are you taking the time and effort to coach them every step of the way? You’re either bossing people to failure or coaching them to success.
Do I support my employee’s dreams within and beyond the workplace? I know it’s hard to swallow but your employees are real people with real dreams outside of work. When you support your employee’s dreams beyond the workplace, you get more out of them within the workplace. (Check out my TEDx talk where I go into more detail about this!)
Am I developing other leaders? Great leaders don’t focus on developing followers; they focus on developing other leaders. Followers will only do what they’re told to do, but leaders take initiative without being asked, they help train new employees and contribute ideas on how to improve processes and projects. Can you imagine what it would be like to have an entire team of impactful leaders? How about an entire organization?

It starts with you becoming an impactful leader first and then learn how to develop that trait in others.

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Betsy Allen-Manning

Leadership Speaker | Best Selling Author | Human Behavior Expert

www.BetsyAllenManning.com

Learn it & Live it:

Watch my 9 minute TEDx talk on how to become an Impactful Leader and comment below on your biggest takeaway from this article and the TEDx talk.
To learn more about developing high performing teams, get a copy of my audiobook, The ‘TRIUMPH’ Method , where I walk you through 7 steps to build trust, gain respect and get people motivated to take action.

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