Everyone knows the fundamentals of paying attention, but why should you do it?  Paying attention allows you to see more opportunity and threats. When you pay attention, you’re also in a better position to identify strengths and weaknesses.  All of this puts you in a better place in which to take action. Then, your actions more effectively meet your commitments to higher management, your team, peers, and outside to your customer. 

As a leader, you must also pay attention to yourself and how you choose to lead.  By observing, questioning, and listening, you gain a certain perspective about your situation. Then, depending upon your understanding, you consciously, or unconsciously, choose how you will influence. There are two fundamental ways in which we lead and influence. These two sets of actions are called “direction” and “support.” By paying attention, you are better prepared to choose how much direction and how much support you need to provide to those you are leading. 

Every time you lead, you are using a certain amount of direction. Remember our session on setting expectations. Every time you are setting expectations, defining roles and responsibilities, explaining what to do or how to do it, you are influencing through direction. This also includes any time you are clarifying things or providing feedback (which will be covered in a future module).

In addition to providing a certain level of direction when you lead, you also include a degree of what we call supporting behavior. Supporting behaviour is just what it sounds like. Actions like listening, encouraging, reinforcing what a person is doing well, and providing rewards and recognition for what a person has achieved are all part of how you influence.

The more you have paid attention, the more you can use your direction and support to influence others around what they need.

Picture this:  Michael is your top-performing account executive. He’s been with your company for 10 years, and, for the last six years, he’s consistently produced results. Recently, you’ve noticed a slight drop in his production. It doesn’t seem like a serious issue YET the number of new sales has dropped along with a dwindling pipeline. 

Your inclination is to give Michael the benefit of the doubt. Even the best salespeople go through slumps – right? But, your intuition tells you there might be something more to his lack of production, and you’re worried even more that it could be a problem across the entire sales force. 

So, what should you do? You could ignore the situation and hope it gets better or you could handle the situation like a true leader. If you choose that path to pay attention, here’s what you need to do:

Have a face-to-face conversation with Michael about what you’ve observed. This in-person conversation will provide the opportunity to eliminate any miscommunication and reduce tension and anxiety that may result. 

·         Question him in order to learn. No, I’m not talking about interrogating him so you can put away the lamp. This is where you express your concern and ask Michael what the reasons are for his drop in sales. If you’ve observed, questioned, and listened to him all along, you’ll know the best way to question him without making him feel like he’s being targeted or attacked. 

·         Listen to what he says. From what he tells you, you found out that his sales are lacking because the new renewal process has made it difficult for customers. (The next step is to ask others to confirm if this is a larger problem.)

·         Act.  How do you handle this situation? In Michael’s case, it might involve giving him a little bit of new direction. Maybe he needs to focus on new sales rather than on his renewals. In the meantime, you can make it your job to figure out if the entire sales force is also having issues with the new renewal process. You may also see the need to provide him with a little encouragement that he will figure this out and bounce back to his usual high-performance standard.

Your ability to pay attention directly correlates with your ability to deal with situations in a timely and effective manner. As you increase your skill in paying attention, your ability to not only predict what’s going to happen goes up, but you are also able to prevent or redirect based on being tuned into your surroundings. Are you paying attention?