Your Leadership Tonality — Staying in Tune
Last week, we explored the idea that every leader creates a kind of “values tonality” that shapes the culture around them. The things we praise, prioritize, protect, celebrate, ignore, or tolerate all contribute to the tone of our organizations. We also discussed the importance of creating a personal values inventory to clarify the beliefs and priorities driving our leadership behaviors and decisions.
But identifying our values is only the first step.
In music, tone is not established once and then ignored. Great musicians are constantly listening, adjusting, refining, and evaluating whether their sound is matching the rest of the ensemble. Leadership requires the same kind of awareness. It is one thing to articulate aspirational values. It is another thing entirely to consistently live them out in the context of our daily work and relationships.
That is the work of staying in tune.
Knowing what guides our leadership is important because leadership is never lived out in isolation. Effective teams require communication, coordination, collaboration, and trust. Understanding who we are and why we lead the way we do helps us better serve others and contribute meaningfully to the ensemble. And when the purpose of our leadership is tested, it is our WHY that helps us persevere. That WHY becomes our unique voice of contribution on our teams.
The greatest leadership challenge is often the movement from intention to action. Without a plan for implementation, good intentions rarely survive the change process. Those good intentions get stuck because of lack of planning and preparation. Then, progress simply stalls out.
So, how will you know if your contributions are in tune with the team or not?
That process is called verification.
Think with me for a moment:
As a leader in your organization, what is it that you want to accomplish? Think big picture.
What are some of your current goals that you are focused on? Perhaps in the current quarter? Can you articulate them?
How will you know if you have been successful as part of your team or organization? What does that success look like?
For me, sustainability and legacy are the two main drivers I keep top of mind within my organization. When I am gone, I want to ensure that systems and processes exist so the great work our team does can continue. To me, success looks like attuned direction—not where everyone agrees all of the time, but where there is unity of purpose and process while autonomy continues to evolve.
Staying in tune requires more than good intentions. It requires intentional alignment between our values, our behaviors, and our contributions. Reflecting upon how we are wired as leaders and how that gifting impacts the team helps to provide the clarity we need to contribute. It helps create attuned intentions and actions.
This is all part of a larger leadership conversation explored in my book IN TONE Leadership. You can learn more HERE.
If you’d like to continue exploring these ideas in a more collaborative setting, I want to encourage you to check out The Conductor’s Circle mastermind experience, where we work in small groups to clarify the all-important concept of Leadership Tonality. You can learn more at THIS LINK.
Next week, we will take a look at a system for bringing all of this together in a way that helps us clarify our purpose. And that all starts with assessment.
See you at the next rehearsal!
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