Being a leader comes with a lot of responsibility, one of which is ensuring you have personal impact and that your message is heard.

As a leader you must believe in your style of work but also be willing to adapt when needed to lead with impact.

Impacting others starts with effective communication and belief in yourself and your message. Using your self-belief as leverage to create messages that resonate with your stakeholders can help achieve your goals and inspire others.

To give your leadership impact the ‘wow’ factor – three key questions should be asked.

1. What’s your message?

All great leaders have a memorable message, and you must first understand your own message before you try to impact others.

The main role of a leader is to inspire others to create a better future and your critical leadership messages should signify that. If you ‘know your message’ then you can ‘be your message’, and messages can wield extraordinary influence.

By showing you are a flexible leader that can take risks, you can create more of an impact on those around you.

By having a crystal-clear message, you can really elevate your impact as a leader and deliver it with clarity and confidence to others. If you have a clear message around your vision and strategy that you can repeat confidently then people will assume you are good at your job and can achieve company objectives.

Great messages are always in eight words or fewer. Examples of powerful messages would be “I have a dream” by Martin Luther King, and “just do it” by Nike.  

You can decide the impact of these words by how your message is worded. It takes time and effort to develop and test these, but a strong message should be understandable and remembered by everyone.

2. Who do you need to influence?

As a leader you must believe in your style of work but also be willing to adapt when needed to lead with impact.

Adapting to different roles requires you to be brave in taking on tasks that might be different to your usual role. By showing you are a flexible leader that can take risks, you can create more of an impact on those around you.

 To do your best as an inspiring leader you must have trust in your team, peers, and clients. If you don’t trust the people you surround yourself with, how can you attempt to lead them or impact them?

Conversations with a wider range of stakeholders internally and externally is a great way to broaden your perspective and test your messages to elevate your influence and impact skills. When sharing your message with stakeholders you must focus on presenting a message they want to hear, rather than sharing what you want to say.

Networking and client focus should be one of the top priorities as a leader, engagement can help build contacts and create a larger pool of people to motivate and share your message with.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of telling someone everything you know about the subject at hand as it gives justification to why you’re there and can make you feel knowledgeable.

The focus, however, should be sharing the important pieces of information that are valuable to your audience, this can help keep people engaged and interested in your message.

3. What’s most crucial?

Being your best self is the most critical leadership quality. To be a leader means to act as a visible role model for your team and take them with you on your journey.

Your team members should get to know your messages when it comes to:

• Purpose: what you do each day within the business to work towards your goals.
• Vision: what goals are you aiming for?
• Strategy: how you will achieve your goals and get to your vision?

Once you have presented your message to your own internal team members, the next stage of impact would be to inspire them to cascade that message onwards.

When teams live their purpose together, they quickly create an environment for success.

Finally, to do your best as an inspiring leader you must have trust in your team, peers, and clients. If you don’t trust the people you surround yourself with, how can you attempt to lead them or impact them?

As your team learns with you through your leadership journey, they get to know your style of working and you able to better connect with them. Team members are more inclined to share your message with others if you have a good connection with them.

You may be the leader of a team, but you should also be the go-to person for issues and ideas in the team.

To lead with impact, you must have a compelling vision with a supporting set of goals around your strategy that you want to achieve. By making these goals and achievements visible through your crystallised leadership messages, you are reminded of them often and it can help focus your actions if challenges arise.

Although obstacles are common when trying to achieve goals, delivering on your message is a key part to leading with impact. This is because it shows you can commit to your goals and see them through.

Achieving objectives can show excellence and profitable growth, therefore showcasing your team workmanship and your inspiring leadership skills.

Interested in this topic? Read The three top skills all leaders need.