As a leader, what do you value most? Where do you focus your time and your energy?

As a volunteer leader for my Toastmasters club and district, I find that my focus is often on goals, metrics, and tasks. I am driven to help my club and my district to succeed at achieving their goals and achieving success in the distinguished club program and the distinguished district program. I also believe strongly in following proper rules and procedures.

This task driven and goal-oriented focus is important as a leader. It helps to ensure that my club and district will be successful. However, while I value achieving success, I think that what really matters the most, and what has the most value, are the people I am supporting as a leader.

If you truly value leadership, and you understand what it means to be a leader, then you will know that valuing people is an important part of being a leader.

My Strength as a Leader

I was inspired to write this article because of a friend who pointed out to me that one of my strengths as a leader is that I value people. He also told me another strength I have as a leader is that I don’t have to make an idea my own. I enjoy helping people and supporting their ideas. He told me the world needs more leaders like this (i.e., leaders who value people and who support other people’s ideas).

I remember a time when I was leading a meeting for my high performance leadership project several years ago. A high performance leadership project is a Toastmasters project where you work with a guidance committee and an action to team to work on a project of you own design.

At this meeting for my high performance leadership project, a couple of my action team members were dominating the discussion and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Their passion for the project and their desire to share their ideas was steering us away from the agenda I had created for the meeting. At the time, I thought I wasn’t being a good leader because we weren’t following the agenda I had created for our meeting.

In future meetings, I got better at taking control of our meetings and not letting one or two people dominate the conversation, but I also realize now that letting passionate team members share their ideas with the group is a good thing. As a leader I do need to reign in the conversation and keep us focused on an agenda, but I value people and it is important to let them have their say. To be truly effective as a leader, I strive to let people have their say while also keeping the meeting on task.

Something else I realized, thanks to my friend’s comments, is that I don’t have to own an idea to successfully lead a project. If my team members steer the project away from my original idea, or the project was not my own idea to begin with, I can still support the project and lead my team to bringing the idea to fruition. I can let other leaders on my team shape and direct the project without having to own the idea myself.

Don’t Let Goals Make You Forget What Matters Most

As a leader for my Toastmasters club, it is important to me that my club achieves success on the Distinguished Club Program. This program is a set of 10 goals that a Toastmasters club strives to achieve every year. 60% of these goals are education goals and these education goals are achieved when club members complete their speech projects and their leadership projects. The Distinguished Club Program also has membership building goals, administration goals, and a club officer training goal.

It is easy to get caught up by focusing on achieving these goals. But achievement of these goals is not what matters the most. I value people, and what matters most to the success of my Toastmasters club is that my fellow club members enjoy being members of our club and that they find value from attending our club meetings.

What does this mean? It means that a Toastmasters club can be successful if its leaders value their members and ensure that the club members feel valued and supported. The Distinguished Club Program goals are important, and achieving these goals is a good way to ensure that a club is successful, but the goals on this program are not the most important thing in a Toastmasters club. My fellow club members are what matter the most.

Show People That They Have Value

One thing that is crucial to do as a leader is to show people that they have value. Because I believe that people have value, I treat them with respect. I also think it is important to show them that they have value.

One year I worked on a project for my Toastmasters club to help recruit new members for our club. I enlisted three of my fellow club members to work with me on this project. We had several planning meetings and organized an open house meeting for our club.

After the project was over, I sent each member of my team a handwritten thank you card to let them know I appreciated their contribution to our project. This was my way of showing them that their efforts were appreciated and that I see value in them.

You too can show your people that they have value. You can do this for your friends. You can do this for your family. You can also show people you work with that they have value.

How can you do this?

The first thing you can do is to always show them respect. You can also thank them when they help you. Depending on the circumstances, you could also send team members handwritten thank you cards or even just thank them in person or via email.

If you lead a team of people, acknowledging and rewarding your team members’ accomplishments is another way to show them that they have value. For example, I worked with a fellow club member to organize a yearend party for our Toastmasters club. At the end of our party, I thanked her in front of our fellow club members, and I let them know that she had done a great job in helping to organize the party and that I appreciated her support.

Conclusion

One of the most important things you can do as a leader is to value people. You can demonstrate this by showing the people on your team that they have value, and that you believe in them. You can also show them they have value by always treating them with respect.

Goals, tasks, and projects are important, but they are not what matters the most. Treating people with respect and showing them that they have value is one of your most important responsibilities as a leader.