Leading sideways – This is perhaps the most difficult and least talked about form of leadership. Leading your peers. This challenges your vision. You can succeed departmentally and fail organizationally. Silo’s are created from a lack of intentional sideways leadership.
By far the least talked about direction of our leadership is sideways leadership. Leading sideways is difficult because you don’t have the leverage you have with leading up and leading down. You also have less personal insensitive. The scariest thing with leading sideways is you can be successful with in the organization you are apart of and that organization suffers because you are so departmentally focused you fail to build the organization. It’s very easy to just put your head down and work hard. When you do that you suffer you team suffers and ultimately the organization suffers.
Here are some questions to ask yourself you suspect you are leading sideways.
1. Am I more loyal to the team I am apart of or the team I lead?
2. Do I share willing my best ideas with my team?
3. Do I share the credit even when I don’t need to?
4. Do I say we more than me?
5. How many times have I gone to someone else’s office/cubical just to talk?
6. Do I believe the best in my peers?
7. Do I find my significance in always being right?