The Leadership Blueprint: A Quick Dive Into The "Leadership: Plain and Simple" by Steve Radcliffe

18 min read

Leadership is not complicated. You don’t need a certain IQ, a job title, or a corner office with a view to be one. What you do need is an ambition, a dream, a goal, or a vision for your team, organisation, or just yourself. It has to be something that truly matters to you.

The thing is that most people live in reaction, whilst leaders stand out because they want a different future that they are determined to achieve. It’s really not about having all the skills or competencies, but about being in touch with what you care about. And it has to be something that you want strongly enough to move toward it. Especially when it’s hard.

Chapter 1️⃣: Future - Engage - Deliver

Leading always starts in the Future
If you want to help others create that Future, you’ll need to engage them
Make things happen (deliver)

Future…

Leaders start with a clear vision about what they’d like to see in the future, how they’d like things to be, where they’d like to get to or what they’d like to build.

It has to be a little bit personal. It has to feel alive and real. When leaders talk about it, others have to feel it.

The strong commitment to achieving this future inspires others. It makes them believe in that future, too. It changes them and sparks something within them. Then they have a desire to achieve this future. This is how leaders make others want to be a part of the journey, giving meaning to their work.

Engage…

Vision alone is not enough. People don’t just follow ideas; they follow people. So invite others in. Not with a sales pitch, but with sincerity. Interact with them in a way that matters, so they will want to build the future with you.

Engagement means connection, alignment, involvement, ownership, and unity. To you and to the mission. It’s not the same as communicating, presenting at, or telling.

What makes it so powerful is that when people feel engaged, they stop asking “what’s in it for me?” and start asking “how do we make it happen?”. This is when people feel ready to do everything it takes to knock down any barriers as they pursue the end goal with you. That’s the moment a group of people becomes a team.

Deliver…

Leading doesn’t stop with vision. It ends with getting the best out of yourself and others to make great things happen. This is when leaders encourage and support the team to help them thrive. And if you’re being a real leader, not a doer, then you’ll see other people making things happen for you. Your mission is now their mission.

Chapter 2️⃣: How to Turbo-Charge Your Growth

Leadership isn’t a title, but a state of being. A switch you flip on if you want to grow fast. Think about how you want to be as a leader before you walk into that meeting, conversation, or challenge. How do you want to show up? Then learn from these experiences and ask others for feedback.

Every conversation, project, and challenge is a chance to lead. Some people wait for the “right” opportunity, but the truth is that sometimes you can create your own.

Ask yourself:

Where are the moments I could practice leadership?
How often am I actually taking them?

You’ll grow into a leader faster by doing than by reading. Books and courses can guide you, but it’s the real-time experiences that shape you into the leader you want to be.

There is also no need to do this alone. Let your people (your support circle/your colleagues) watch you rise. Tell them how you want to grow as a leader and ask them to rate you, track your progress, and give honest feedback.

But above all, start today.

Don’t limit yourself. Believe that you’re a leader, even if the title is not officially yours. Leading is, in fact, a part of us all, regardless of position, title, or place. You can simply turn it on. :)

Once you truly believe that you’re one, you will find yourself in a Leader Mode - a powerful place where you feel at your best and make things happen.

Many people in managerial positions lose sight of themselves as leaders and lose touch with their inner fire. If you’re here right now, that's okay - you’re not broken, just asleep! Here's what you can do to “wake up”:

Remember the times when you’ve been in your Leader Mode. Describe what you felt, what your energy was like, and what you did.
List all times and places when you are in Operator/Manager mode - which meetings, projects, interactions?
Decide where you want to shift. Which of those moments deserves your Leader Mode? Then, create a mental image that makes you feel good and encourages you to be the leader you want to be.
Ahead of these times, practice seeing it in your head.
Then, practice being it when the time comes.

Chapter 3️⃣: Future

Answer two key questions that’ll help you become a leader who leads from the heart:

What do you care about? What truly matters to you, what do you value, and what are you passionate about? Remember, you can’t be a great leader for things you don’t care about… You won’t be inspired, and there will be no fire within you to lead the change. You’ll know that you have the right answer when you feel energised, good, and excited.
What do you want to lead for? Connect what you care about with what is real, tangible and specific. Think about:

What results do you want to achieve? Not someday - now.
What do you want to take action on now?
What specifically do you want to make happen that is part of what you care about? This step is not about following someone else’s mission or doing something because you have to, but about being fully aligned with what matters to you.

Other questions to stimulate you:

✅ What’s the next brave step that honours what you care about?

✅ Who needs to hear you speak your mind out loud?

✅ What have you been tolerating that you now refuse to?

✅ Where are you managing when you could be leading?

Building Your Future Muscles For Leadership

1️⃣ Be Guided By the Future You Want

It starts by comparing where you are with where you want to be.

Only this vision can help you focus on what truly matters and what actions are important. It’ll also help to see what’s working and what’s missing.

2️⃣ Embrace the Big Picture, the Whole

Leaders need to keep revisiting the bigger picture to know not only what needs to be done by when, but most importantly, why. Leaders must be capable of seeing the whole as well as the parts within it.

3️⃣ Don’t Limit Yourself

People tend to have a variety of limitations on themselves that make it harder to lead. Here are the most common examples:

They think from the present - the immediacy of what’s happening now makes people lose sight of the big picture and where they want to be. This might be a common issue if you’re in Operator/Manager mode.
They can’t see how - not knowing how to do something should not hold you back when you’re in Leader mode. When you’re up to something, you’ll rarely know exactly how you’re going to make certain things happen, and that’s fine.
Your limiting beliefs - being aware of beliefs that hold you back is the first step in overcoming them. Your limiting beliefs are one of the main culprits that limit your ability to create what you want, and so you need to view them as the enemies that they are.

4️⃣ Know What Leader You Want to Be

You need to decide, write down, understand, and deeply know what leader you truly want to be, start acting like it, and be energised by it, no matter what happens on your way.

Chapter 4️⃣: Engage

Engage is about your impact on others, which includes how you connect with them, how you stimulate their thinking, and how you influence their energy. Relationships are the engine of everything. Big, solid, trust-filled connections are what let you get the job done and done well.

A good way to discover what impact you make on people is to ask for feedback. The uncomfortable part here is that the impact you think you have (Impact Intended) on people will not always be the impact you’re actually leaving behind (Impact Felt). What you might find is that there is a gap between the two. Recognising this gap will let you see that you need to engage people differently to help them want to bring their very best to the table.

“While the Future aspect of leadership is about who you are being when you are alive with a sense of a Future you want. The Engage aspect is about how you show up in your Relationships.” Leadership is more about what you’re like and how you come across than anything else.

The 4 Aspects of Engagement

Relationships: People will feel most engaged when they feel listened to by you, think that their opinion matters to you, believe that you actively want them to be involved, and feel acknowledged by you. This is when they’ll do their very best for you and your goals.
Possibilities, ideas: As a leader, your task is to find a way to excite others about the Future and the Possibilities for themselves and what they care about. The easiest and probably best way to do this is Co-Invention - by inviting them to co-invent Possibilities.
Opportunities, Priorities: Agree on specific opportunities and priorities to focus on first.
Actions: Move yourself and others into Action mode, from co-inventing ideas and sharing opinions and points of view to making powerful Requests and Promises.

Chapter 5️⃣: Deliver

The first, and probably most important, step in becoming brilliant at delivery as a leader is to make sure that you’re in the right mode.

In Leader Mode, you think “who do I want to Engage and what is the Request I want to make of them?”, and not ”what shall I do?”.

It’s time to practise making Big Requests of others. You can ask yourself:

How strong is your tendency just to do a job yourself?
Is making requests of others your first or second thought?
Who are the people you do make requests to?
Who are the people you don’t?
How clear is your picture of you delivering in Leader Mode rather than in Operator/Manager Mode?

To excel in Deliver, you must first have done a great job in Future and Engage.

Then, you have to mean it. Remember, there will be various forces at play that will work against you delivering well through others (human errors, forgetfulness, different messages from different departments, etc), and you’ll need to bring your own vital energies to counterbalance these forces.

When what you want to be delivered truly matters to you, you’ll see that you automatically lead others by setting high expectations and high standards. You’ll focus when others may be distracted, follow through and follow up, and you’ll also hold people to account. This is when such things as milestones, plans, processes and timetables are automatically set in place to ensure timely delivery.

Deliver Later

Training your team to make things happen at a later time is another strategy that you, as a leader, can use. This is more about viewing your team as future leaders, not your followers.

You can help your team do this by helping them distinguish their Leader Mode from the Operator/Manager one, by helping them see how they can grow their leadership Muscles, and helping them identify and go beyond their Limiting Beliefs.

Useful prompts:

You commit to Developing Others as Leaders because it’s a core ingredient in your beliefs about how you’re going to succeed.
You develop a mindset that doesn’t just focus on getting the job done now but also constantly looks for opportunities to grow others.
You encourage others to explore what they care about, what they want to lead for, and who they want to be as a leader.
You’ll demonstrate that you’re also practising growing yourself as a leader.

“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers” - Ralph Nader.

Delivery is not really that complex. The important part is to lead it through 4-5 conversations, which will guarantee you will deliver more. They are:

Making Big Requests

All big requests should ideally be made in a way that has others engaged by the Future you want and makes them desire to deliver what’s required. Reflect on:
- Are you clear on what you want, by when and to what standard? If not, are you ready to invite others in, in order to get this clear?
- If you’re clear, are others clear as well?
- Are you looking to engage others or just talk to them?
- Are you seeking this as a one-way conversation or a two-way dialogue and Co-invention that helps build others’ involvement and ownership?
- If looking to engage, is the Relationship big enough to get the job done, or will you need to build it further as a part of this conversation?
- Are you focused only on Possibilities that excite you?
- Can the Requests you’re making be delivered within the current ways of working/the current culture? Or are you also asking for new ways of thinking and behaviours?
- What human aspects of delivery are needed, and are you bringing them? Are you bringing conviction, urgency, passion, enthusiasm, and the belief that you can do it together?

Maximising Probability of Delivery

You should have ongoing conversations until the desired result is achieved, with a goal to maximise the probability of delivery. Reflect on:
- Are you talking up front about how you’ll work together to ensure delivery?
- Are you in agreement on how you’ll be kept up to date on progress? In what form and what frequency?
- Are you in agreement on what you want to know and when, after setbacks or missed milestones?
- Are you creating a safe space where people feel safe to tell you of setbacks and bad news?
- Are you ready to offer appropriate input, support and coaching to help keep others focused and delivering?
- Are you bringing a commitment and resolve that others see and respond to?
- Are you helping others manage their energy towards successful delivery?

Delivery is Acknowledged

This is the conversation that needs to be had when what you want is delivered at the time and to the standard you want. Reflect on:
- Do you acknowledge others for a good job done?
- Do you acknowledge the person for what they have contributed to progress? This is about how your communication and acknowledgement make people feel, and if they allow them to grow their confidence. E.g. “Really good job, thanks” is not as good as “I want you to know I really appreciate the creativity you brought to this challenge, the way you kept everyone focused, and the tenacity you showed to get it all done on time. Many thanks”.
- Do you ask those whom you are developing as leaders what they have learned about themselves and who they could be as leaders?
- Do you pause to extract the learning from this success rather than just bashing on with the next challenge?
- Do you pause to consider what’s possible now that didn’t seem possible earlier?
- Overall, do you leave others feeling good about themselves, wanting to grow even further and ready to take on even more?

Non-delivery is Addressed

This is the conversation that needs to be had when what you want has not been delivered to the standard you want. It helps if you genuinely want others to succeed and grow, so reflect on:
- Are you having this conversation as soon as you can, or are you putting it off? Don’t keep quiet and leave it till the annual appraisal!
- Are you speaking your truth about what you see and how you feel about it while also listening to their view?
- Are you maximising the learning from the situation?
- Are you making clear the consequences of repeated under-delivery?
- Are you agreeing on a new timeline for delivery?
- Are you bringing commitment and determination to getting the job done?
- Are you having this conversation in a way that lifts the other’s energy?

The Wrap Up

The conversation when the job is completed. Consider exploring with your team the following:
- What beliefs did they have about themselves when they didn’t get it right the first time?
- What might they have been tempted to do, e.g. avoid, hide, not take responsibility?
- What support did they look for and get in tackling the difficulty faced?
- What qualities did they need to bring to rectify the situation?
- What did they learn from the experience?
- How have they grown?

Chapter 6️⃣: The Four Energies

“Your first and foremost job as a leader is to manage your own energy, and help manage the energy of those around you.”

Intellectual Energy

This is your thinking, your analysis, your logic, and rationality. It drives curiosity, creativity, planning, focus, and is used in debates and arguments. Too much of it can suppress passion and enthusiasm, but it’s important as it helps people be organised.

Emotional Energy

This is about human connection and relationships. When it’s strong and positive, people feel listened to, included, valued, cared for, and special. When less than positive, people can feel excluded, frustrated, anxious, upset and angry. It’s an essential energy for teamwork, partnership, alignment, and effective collaboration.

Spirit Energy

This is your vitality, sense of being alive, and in touch with what you care about. It’s linked to your passion, the Future, and a sense of possibility.

This energy is crucial in leadership because it brings optimism and a belief that anything is possible, which builds confidence.

This is the energy that comes with people knowing the why of what they are doing, having a sense of purpose, being inspired and having aspirations.

On the opposite side, when the spirit energy is low, people feel bored, apathetic, pessimistic, and that their work is meaningless.

Physical Energy

This is the energy of action, making things happen, of getting things done. It’s a key part of our vitality and helps us be alert and maintain concentration and commitment.

When this energy is low, we feel tired, listless, worn out and stressed.

We can keep our physical energy high with a good diet, exercise, taking enough time to relax and getting a good night’s sleep. All of these can help us have more energy for things that matter to us!

Build awareness about the energies in your organisation by reflecting on:

Which of the energies are most valued?
Which do you need to bring to get on and get promoted?
How consciously are the energies managed?
Are senior players balancing all energies or focusing on just one or two?
Who are the people who raise others’ energies and who drain them?
What meetings and situations give people energy, and which drain it?
To what extent is it ok in meetings to talk about how you’re feeling, not just what you’re thinking?
How much is people’s spirit energy lifted by the purpose and aspirations of your organisation?
How strong is the emotional energy of people who feel valued by the organisation?

Build awareness about your energies by reflecting on:

What do you notice about your energies when you think about work?
How do your energies rise and fall at work?
Which energies do you naturally bring?
Which energies are not strong for you?
And crucially, what would others say about you on these two questions?
What gives you energy and what drains it?
Who drains it, and how do you recharge it?
How smart are you at doing this?
How well are you at managing your physical energy through your diet, sleep, and lifestyle?

“Leadership is not about making clever decisions and doing bigger deals. It is about helping release the positive energy that exists naturally within people.” - Henry Mintzberg.

Chapter 7️⃣: Be At Your Best, More of The Time

When you’re at your best, leading flows naturally. When you’re at your most confident best, you’re in touch with the Future you want and not held back by the present. You’re also more engaging, and it’s easier to make people want to work and be around you. When your spirit is high, you’re more inclined to connect emotionally with people around you and have more drive and focus.

You will certainly have moments and situations when you will feel doubtful, worried or afraid - you can’t fully eliminate this. But what you can do is to be aware at any moment of who you are and whether it’s who you want to be. And then to choose who you want to be. Below are some steps that can help you do that:

Step 1:

Think how you are and how you feel when a) you’re at your best (e.g. alive, energised, ready for action), and b) you’re just surviving (e.g. frustrated, angry, upset). Think about how you and your feelings differ here when you’re in higher and lower energy. For example:

Just surviving - higher level:

Angry

Aggressive

Making others wrong

Controlling

In the detail

Just surviving - lower energy

Withdrawn

Quiet

Playing safe

Deferring

Isolated

At your best - higher energy

Make things happen

On the front foot

Driving

Buzzing

Confident

At your best - lower energy

Calm energy

Peaceful

Reflective

Seeing the big picture

Grace under pressure

Step 2:

Next, think about the impact you have on those around you. Start by noting the impact you’d like to have on others (your Intended Impact), and then separately how you imagine people actually feel around you.

Step 3:

List your triggers - things that can suddenly make you a certain way you don’t want to be. What patterns do you see?

Now make them as real as you can in your mind. Imagine yourself being at your best in those situations, as if you were not triggered at all. What would that look like? How would you feel? What would you say? How would you speak?

Practice this often, especially before you expect a certain trigger to reach you - this will help you remain closer to the “at your best” version.

Step 4:

Consider the costs of going into your “just surviving” mode. Most costs fall under either your energy or your relationships, because this mode frequently makes your energy poor, brings stress, and makes you feel tired and drained.

You may get too deep into the details of your Operator Mode, unable to lead.
You will start focusing on yourself, rather than connecting with your team. This can leave people disengaged, and you may alienate them.
You may lack energy and focus to deliver, or feel too withdrawn and quiet.

Step 5:

Think about how you may benefit from being in your “just surviving” mode - do you feel right or safe? You may experience some short-term benefit from this mode, but think about whether this perceived benefit outweighs the costs.

Step 6:

Practice returning to your best by seeing the bigger picture and putting things into perspective (you may need to take a break, go for a walk, get some exercise, talk to someone to let off steam or sleep on it, etc). Then reconnect with your answers to the three big questions:

What do you care about?
What do you want to lead for?
Who is the leader you want to be?

Step 7:

Finally, think about any situations where you are not at your best and write them down. Make them as specific as you can - include in which situations, with which people, in which meetings, etc. Then picture yourself at your best in each of them - how do you feel? How is your energy? How do you respond to your triggers? Don’t wait until the moment arrives; imagine these things ahead of time and build your ability to choose who you want to be.

Chapter 8️⃣: Future-Engage-Deliver and Teams

High-performing teams always feel that they are up to something together. To get there, it involves all of the following:

Future - where the “something” is co-invented,
Engage - where the “together” is cemented,
Deliver - where the “something” is made real through working “together”.

Future & Teams

This is all about being in alignment with the Future your team wants to see. It needs to capture the organisation’s new direction and purpose. One of the first and most important tasks should be to search for the common ground among the players, not the differences, and to discover the Future they want to build together.

Step 1:

Ask each of your team members to think and answer these 2 questions individually and then share the answers with each other:

What do you care about?
What is the future organisation you’d be proud to help build (what do you want to lead for?)

Step 2 - The Gap:

Discuss the gaps between the Current Reality and the Future They Want.

Listen to the common ground and encourage shared understanding to build a sense of alignment.

Then, discuss and reveal how engaged each of the players is - help those who need to move up the Levels of Engagement.

Finally, notice that not all players will view things as urgently as others. You need to know and understand where each player stands in terms of urgency.

You can also build The Gap Model by asking your colleagues to answer a series of questions about priorities, culture, team ways of working, team and individual development, and next steps. Ask them:

Priorities: What are the tangible aspects of the organisation that we must focus on now?
Culture: What culture will we need in the organisation to create the Future You Want, and how different will that be from the one we have today?
Team ways of working: Who is the team we want to be and how will we work together?
Team and individual development: How will we need to grow both as a team and individually to pull all this off?
Next steps: What do we need to do next to build further momentum?

Engage & Teams

There are three ways in which engagement can be missing from teams:

Members are insufficiently engaged - they don’t feel valued, that they matter, that they are listened to, that their opinion counts, and that they’re taken for granted. Ask yourself:

In what teams have you felt valued and not?
What do you feel in your current teams?
How well is the Emotional Energy freed and used?
How valued do you think your team colleagues feel?
What have you noticed helps people feel valued, and what can work against this?

Members are not engaged in each other - you should not only want the team to win, but you should also want each of your colleagues to be at their best and succeed. Consider the below:

Who is committed to your success?
How good does it feel when you have someone committed to your success?
Whose success are you committed to?
Who does that include on your teams, and who does it not include?
What might it look like if you were committed to all your team members’ success?
What do you see might be possible if this were a common feature of all relationships in the team

Members are engaged as Leaders of a Part, not Leaders of the Whole - they are either encouraged to be in a passive Operator/Manager Mode rather than in fully participating Leader Mode, or they only act as part of a Leader (head of their part, head of their department, their function, etc.). Leaders of the Whole enjoy seeing others succeed. They bring more energy to collaborating, make more sacrifices for the common good, and tend to make a bigger difference. Think:

In which teams have you been a leader of a Part and in which a Leader of the Whole?
Which of your team colleagues would you say are Leaders of a Part? And which are the Leaders of the Whole?
What do you see is possible if everyone stepped into being Leaders of the Whole?
What conversations could you start that would help people shift there?

Deliver & Teams

If you really want your team to succeed, you must have the right mix of skills and experience on the team. Set your standards high and make sure that those who are not performing know this. Then, make sure your team gets some early wins or takes some overt, untypical decisions or actions which make other people notice them. This can lift energy and early confidence. You can ask yourself:

How do you describe the energy in your team right now?
What drains the energy, and what raises it?
If you were more of a Leader of the Whole, what extra could you do to help the team’s energy and strengthen the sense of ‘we mean it’?