How to Take Your Performance to the Next Level

• Build your base of supporters. Who is protecting you? Who is looking out for you? You, of all people, gain strength from knowing that you are surrounded by people on whom you can rely. Amidst all the self-interest and the personal ambition, take care to build a small work “family” whom you trust utterly. You will always be at your best when you know that a few carefully chosen people have your back.

• Your need for a work family shouldn’t stop you from taking on new assignments. Just know that when you move into a new position, you will sense your lack of coverage and, more than most, you will feel exposed. Neutralize these feelings by starting to build a new “family” as quickly as you can. Find one person you can trust, nurture that relationship, and carefully build out from there.

• Make it a ritual to gather your team together at the beginning of each week to talk about responsibilities. Ask your people to make specific commitments. You are at your most passionate, authentic, and persuasive when you ask people to step up and take ownership for their work.

• Find examples of how team members supported one another and then share these examples with the team. People often need reminding of how much they need one another, how vulnerable the “lone wolf” is, how powerful mutual support can be. Others will look to you for these vivid reminders.

• You have the potential to lead large groups of people. People will want you to lead them. They know that in you they have someone who will look out for their interests, someone who will advocate for them, someone who will expect them to step up and make a bigger contribution. So learn how to transfer your own sense of responsibility to them. Use stories, examples, heroes, and success stories to show them what true personal responsibility looks like in their world.

• Seek out messy situations where trust has disappeared and conflict reigns. Through your actions and your demeanor you can be an agent of transformation. You can serve as an example of personal responsibility and constancy. This is potentially a massive contribution to a world broken by mistrust.