Key to good leadership is the ability to learn and adapt.

If you want to learn more you have to ask more and better questions. If you want to adapt, you have to learn about your environment, yourself, and your leadership.

Three call it behaviours or habits, are key to being successful on this path:

1. Informal beats formal leadership

   Informal leadership creates more relationships throughout an organisation than formal leadership. Formal leadership only focuses on reporting lines and peers on the same hierarchy level. But it is across informal networks that knowledge, innovation and collaboration lies. As an emerging leader, you must be conscious about when to use the hierarchy and when to use your informal network. If in doubt, go for informal.

2. Don't compensate for your team

   Emerging leaders tend to polish their team's presentations, interrupt them in meetings to specify what they are stating and micro-manage them. Accept and develop! Coach them, and give them quality standards but do not compensate for them.

3. Don't be afraid to ask questions

   Emerging leaders tend to speak up and voice their opinion thinking that this is how they can position themselves. I have heard many complaints about leaders giving their opinion about everything but never about leaders asking questions. Humility and authenticity trump any power games.

"The important and difficult job is never to find the right answers, it is to find the right question", wrote Peter Drucker.

I can't wait to read your feedback, comments, questions, shoutouts and suggestions.

And give some thought to the following: Which of the 3 habits will you base your leadership on?