Know when to step up

- If you're excited about elevating your informal leadership skills, you may be tempted to raise your hand for every opportunity. I commend the enthusiasm, but let's dial it back for a sec. Think quality over quantity. You cannot be a good leader if you are chronically overwhelmed or burnt out. Full stop. That's even more true in informal leadership compared to formal leadership because you don't have the undercurrent of your subordinates wanting to please you. You have to pick and choose when to step up to the plate within at least mostly the boundaries of your current role. When you're actively looking for opportunities to lead informally, it helps to look through a few lenses. Number one, do you actually have the bandwidth to do a good job? I kind of already gave this one away, but if you're already underwater, do not raise your hand until you manage to get something off your plate. It is much better to be a satisfactory, contributing teammate than a poor, informal leader. And number two. Do you have some type of expertise or knowledge that's relevant to this opportunity? Even if your experience is from another company or a class you took in a university, any subject matter expertise will give you credibility as an informal leader. A big part of whether people listen to you or not is if they believe you are competent. Three, do you have relationships with key players? If you've established positive relationships with the people involved, that's going to make informal leadership much easier. You'll have less to prove at the start. Four, do you have a support system? It's okay to step up to the plate when you don't have it a hundred percent figured out, but in that event, make sure you have backup. Be it mentors, peers, or really supportive boss, someone or some resource to fall back on when it gets hard. Now, you don't need to answer yes to all of these, except the first one, bandwidth. But if you have no expertise, no relationships and no support, I would counsel you to wait for a more opportune moment to raise your hand. If it's a formal opportunity like heading up an initiative or leading a project team, here's how to set yourself up. If you have expertise, say something like, "In my last organization, we experienced a similar challenge. I learned a lot through that, and I think I could help us avoid a few of the hiccups by leading this project." And nuance matters here. You're not saying, "Well, we did it better at my last place." You are saying, "I want to put my knowledge to work for this team." For relationships, try saying something like, "I know the engagement of such and such a team will be important. I worked with them closely before and I'd be happy to connect with them to kick off this project." If the opportunity is informal, like just helping a colleague brainstorm for an hour or showing a new hire around, you can still intentionally, and that's the operative word here, offer your expertise and engagement to your colleagues. Regardless of formality, stay away from investing time in things that will suck up all your energy or don't offer a lot of value to the organization. Informal leadership can be challenging, but on balance, it should infuse energy into you and your career. Look beyond the task and ask yourself, how can I leverage my expertise, relationships, and support to make an even bigger impact?