3 Things You Can Do to Establish Yourself as a Leader

What are some tips for young people who want to grow into leadership? originally appeared on Quora – the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

Answer by Shir Nir, CEO & Partner Handel Group, creator of How to Have A Hard Conversation, on Quora:

The three most important things one can do to grow in leadership, in my opinion, are:

1. Work on yourself and and your own personal evolution. You can do it with a coach or a mentor. I used to train for Ironman with a guy that worked at the Palm Beach school system. I used to train with him for hours and ended up coaching him on our long runs. That year, he was promoted twice, which never happens in the school system.
2. Provide more than expected and leave things better than the way you found them. People will pay attention when you do that and they will want you to teach and lead others.
3. Cause a result that is not going to happen without you taking it on, and do it with other people whom you can empower to take accountability for some of the work. I once coached a VP in a large tech firm and had him take on a project to develop a new product that was not a priority but had a potentially good ROI. We created a team of volunteers who wanted to participate and he led the team. Within three months, he sold two of the products and made the company $65K. The investment was $0 because they all gave their free time to do this. He was promoted immediately.

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