Consistency – your superpower – leadership skills

If you asked me what is one leadership skill that makes you stand out from the crowd, I’d say it’s consistency.

It may sound obvious – that being consistent is an essential leadership skill – but often this is not the case.

What does Consistency mean in leadership

Think about a person who would change their opinion or direction on a random basis. Last week they moved from A to G, and today it’s now M.

Or their mood would shift from one in the morning to a different one in the afternoon. And you never knew what to expect from that person – because of their unpredictability.

What cosistency means when you are a leader is that your team has a degree of predictability in a world that is constantly changing.

Here’s a couple of examples what this translates to:

• from a big picture persepctive, your team understand the direction they are following
• you hold your team meetings on a regular basis, and there is a degree of standard agenda to them
• you hold your 121 sessions with your team members on a regular basis, even if it is a quick check-in call
• the team know what behaviours to expect from you – we’ll explore this a bit further below
• you don’t change your team’s tasks randomly; they don’t need to change their focus every few days or weeks

Consistency is one of those features that I consider a silent superpower. The minute it’s gone you can immediately feel it. People are agitated, nervous, are likely to behave in an erratic way, or make wrong decisions.

“Where did that come from?”

Let’s focus on the behaviours that signify consistency for a minute. I worked with a team leader who always created an atmosphere of anxiety. You never knew what to expect from one meeting with them to another. Statements like “where did that come from” were a consistent – ironically – comment that would be made.

Your consistent behaviour means predictability and consequently psychological safety to your team. This means that e.g. if you’ve had an unpleasant meeting yourself, you don’t bring the emotions from that meeting to the next interaction. It also shows as being honest and genuine – if there has been something that has shaken you, you explain the situation to your team if need be. You don’t leave them guessing and filling in gaps by themselves.

Consistent behaviour will bring a degree of predictability while there is a lot that changes around your team. You thus demonstrate that you are not swayed by events around you. And this in turn will make you a respected and listened to leader that people will want to be around.

Photo by Jack Dong on Unsplash

Consistency is your silent superpower

Why silent? Because that’s the nature of consistency – it’s not loud. It’s there, in the background, always present. Having said that, you can easily tell consistent leaders from inconsistent ones. The lack of consistency becomes quite a promiment and noticeable factor.

While it takes time and patience to learn consistency, I hope you can see that it is asbolutely worth learning and mastering as one of your leadership skills (you can explore this and other skills in the Learning Leaders’ Guide!).

What does consistency as a leadership skill mean to you? How do you demonstrate it?

Feature image by Diogo Nunes on Unsplash