If You Want to Make Your Leadership Impact Big, Focus on the Small Things

Impactful leadership relies on many things too often seen as a grab bag of options rather than conscious choices. In truth, there’s a hierarchy, one people often miss, or worse still, invert.  

Leaders do both at their peril. The implied hierarchy, the flipped one, puts the grand at the top. Think: the grand declaration, the grand gesture, or the commanding title. Far too often, these things become the default metrics for leadership impact, setting a misleading and false standard.  

Below the grandiose in this upside-down order, leaders place the small things—all those little day-to-day acts that in isolation can easily seem inconsequential. They’re most often the ones few leaders take. Way down at the bottom of the list, nearly forgotten, are the patterns that link all the small acts together. These are the truth tellers. No matter how loudly leaders broadcast the grandiose, the patterns both foretell and prove leadership impact, or a lack thereof. 

Questions leaders should consider 

What is the message here? Put simply, if you’re a leader hoping to make a lasting impact, ask yourself: Do I flip this pyramid of priority? Do I attend more to the grand and perhaps sweep the small under the rug as less consequential? What, in other words, do my patterns add up to? What do they tell and foretell about the impact I have? Even if the message seems clear, examples always help. So let me share a fresh and personal one. 

The little things: To amplify or to mute? 

Today, I had two important emails to send. By and large, emails are not the acts you typically point to as the proving ground for leadership. Yet in their small way, these short notes were significant. They were intended for two individuals I was exploring as potential partners—two people who, in fact, compete. Each email was initiating a new relationship, or at least was intended to. Although the content of each message was simple and much the same, the nuances help leave a distinct impression. 

For efficiency’s sake, I repurposed parts of my message, copying a sentence or two from the first email to the second. I rarely do this. However, when I do it, I do it with trepidation and care. In this case, although I checked multiple times, I made an error. I did so in the most dreaded way, too—in the second email sent, I failed to remove the name of the first recipient. 

The small actions matter

It’s easy to minimize or even erase the memory of such moments because the error wasn’t a make-or-break mistake. Also, it’s the kind of mistake unseen by the broader public. That’s also precisely why it’s so easy to miss that the small actions set patterns and shape your actual impact. It doesn’t happen right away, but without a doubt, it does over time. I knew this. I knew as well that in all likelihood only a few people would probably ever know of my mistake. It presented what every small act does: a choice. I didn’t have to, but I chose not just to own it but to call out the egg on my face. 

I quickly sent a note to person No. 2. Right at the top, in a single standalone sentence, I called out my error to ensure it wouldn’t be missed. Then and only then did I go on to offer an explanation. I shared that, like any good businessperson, I was doing my homework and exploring my options. I was reaching out not only to him but to his competitor.  

In a small but significant way, I was sending a message about myself as a leader. However, that was an additive. I quickly circled back to the central point that no matter my good intentions, it was a careless error and fully mine. If you’re curious, the outcome is yet to come. However, it’s also irrelevant. Here’s what is relevant, and pivotal. 

How little becomes large 

Everyone, regardless of their role, leads. Bigger still than their work roles, everyone leads in their lives. Yet, take careful note: Bigger is not grander. Bigger lies in the wholeness of who every person is, individually. There’s no coincidence that the best leaders not only know this, but they begin with this knowledge. They build from that base. The best leaders know that they have to learn to lead themselves before they have any chance of effectively leading anyone else.  

Impactful leaders understand that true leadership rarely takes place in the white-hot spotlight. It happens in smaller and lesser-seen places. They also know that no matter how good you are, what you do will inevitably involve errors, bad calls, and unease. It isn’t avoiding or muting mistakes that defines you as a leader. It’s what you do when these things happen and the pattern that sets across your responses. 

So, what should your next move be? Whatever it is, try something different. Try thinking small rather than grand. Think private instead of public. Most of all, take note of the pattern—not just the one already in motion or the one wished for, but the one ever-evolving from each small act. In the end, that’s how leadership makes an impact.