Embracing Change: M.A.I.N Pyramid of Leadership
Change is inevitable in both life and business, and how we approach it shapes our success as leaders. The M.A.I.N Pyramid of Leadership highlights the importance of modeling behaviors and setting expectations that ripple through your organization. As a business owner, your actions influence how your employees, contractors, and associates respond to challenges and opportunities.
This exercise is about reflecting on your own behaviors and practices to ensure they align with the culture you want to cultivate. Answering the following questions will help you identify areas for growth, paving the way for a stronger, more adaptable team.
M.A.I.N Pyramid of Leadership uses a visual to represent the time and energy you will need to spend when creating and implementing behaviors and expectations within your company. Inspiring Success firmly believes in the top down approach in this instance especially. The behavior and expectations you have or would like to have of your employees, associates, contractors etc. begins with how you behave and interact with everyone.
When those you influence watch your expressed behavior, they will either easy adopt and adapt it for themselves or they won’t. If you are not showing them by your own actions, then it will be very difficult and challenging to ask them to do something you are not willing to do yourself. Here are the four elements that make up the M.A.I.N Pyramid of Leadership:
M – Model:
This is the behavior you want your employees to exhibit while they are working ‘in-house’ and outside of the office. It takes time for your behavior to catch on and become ‘normal’ or ‘expected’ behaviors as a result it takes the most energy. This is why it is found at the base of the triangle – it’s the foundation to everything else.
A – Advance:
This is the time you are investing in educating and improving your own skills such as communication, time management, or anger management. By continuing your own education and building your own skills, is to build and reinforce what you are modeling to your employees.
I – Implement:
As we move up the pyramid, the amount of time you need to invest begins to decrease. The implementation phase of expected behavior is less than the advancement and quite a bit less than the modeling.
When you are consistent in your actions, then the implementation is easier as your employees naturally adopt it for their own behavior. Implementing can also be referred to as educating. You are educating your employees on certain policies and procedures to support what you have been modeling.
N – Navigate:
At the top of the pyramid is the navigation. If we are modeling, advancing and implementing effectively and efficiently then navigating the new policies and procedures about behaviors and expectation will have limited consumption of your time as a leader.
Employees who consistently see the expectations modeled for them, organically adopt and implement them without too much effort or education. They will seek to advance their own skills based on the foundation of what is being modeled. With any policy, expectation or procedure there will be hiccups needing to be addressed, adjusted and altered.
This is normal. Embrace the ability of your employees to identify and share with you what is working and what is not.
Reflection Questions
By embracing change and reflecting on these elements, you set the foundation for a thriving business culture that mirrors your leadership vision.
