Boost Your Memory, Boost Your Leadership

A lot of people ask, what is 1 skill that is the most important to work on to be a better leader?

My response: your memory.

Most people are shocked, some confused. They think it should be communication, motivation, or accountability.

Well guess what, all of those skills grow from a sharp memory.

So now everyone’s mind is racing: they hadn’t thought about that.

Let’s think about memory as a skill for improved leadership.

One thing you probably heard about to improve leadership is to get to know your team. Well, what better way to get to know someone then to remember what they told you?

Remember stuff about them, and remember to bring it up from time to time. Remember an event in their life or something they are interested in.

Another thing leaders do is lead projects. It is a good thing to memorize the gantt chart so that you can reference next steps when you speak to team members.

Strong leaders also remind their co-workers when things are due, so you will have to remember due dates.

Holding people accountable is high on the list of leadership skills. What easier way to hold someone accountable than to remember that they have to do something and check in on them from time to time, but you will have to remember to do that.

Work on your memory, and you will work on your leadership skills.

But how do you get started boosting your memory?

By working with something we all love, are comfortable with, and can relate to. Don’t worry, we are going to make it easy. We are going to build a pattern to follow. (Who doesn’t love the predictability of a good pattern.)

First, start by understanding your preferred learning style.

There are 4, we use them all, but we all have one that really stands out for us.

The learning styles are:

Visual

Audio

Words (reading & writing)

Kinesthetic (doing)

Which one do you gravitate towards, which feels more comfortable to you? Think of all the times you try to learn something.

For me it is Visual, all the way. I am a visual learner, and I am going to use this to boost my memory.

When I hear (audio) an important piece of information, I turn it into a picture in my mind. When I see a note (words), I take a snapshot in my mind of that note to make it visual.

For example, if I receive an email with a meeting in it, Friday 10 am, I picture that calendar square with a meeting at 10 in my mind. I want to see that meeting visually on the calendar to tap into my learning style of Visual.

Let’s say you are an Audio learner, you may want to say that meeting, date, and time out loud to yourself or get an app to ‘speak’ that meeting so you hear ‘someone’ say it.

Words: it is in an email, so you are already reading it. But if someone told you of a meeting (audio), you will probably want to write that meeting info down.

Kinesthetic: you may tap the back of your hand as you repeat the meeting details.

Figure out your learning style and work on a method to exploit it.

Next, build your pattern.

The sequence is: Important Information followed by Method.

If you hear an important piece of information, then complete your learning style method.

If I hear about a meeting, then I picture the calendar in my mind.

If I read a helpful article, I then turn it into a mental picture I can associate with.

Try it out yourself and start practicing.

Understand your preferred learning style, formulate your method to utilize it, and complete the pattern every time you receive important information you want to retain.

So a lot of people think they will start to take more notes. How can they forget if they write it down?

This works if you like taking notes, can remember you took the note, or can find the note when you need it.

I think it is better to tap into your learning styles to help boost your memory. One of them is taking notes (words) but you could prefer visual, audio, or kinesthetic learning, and could shy away from notes (like me.)

Boosting your memory boosts your leadership, in one way, because the information you need is more readily available to you. If you have to dig through a notebook every time someone asks you a question it can get a bit frustrating both for you and the person asking the question.

Even if you use a computer for notes and a search function for finding the specifics, it takes time and a bit of a delay.

It can also begin to get uncomfortable. The person asking the question can start questioning your level of knowledge on the subject or what you are working on (valid or not), and you can start to get embraced.

An improved memory will help clear your mind of all the cobwebs. By being able to answer questions quickly and accurately, you can go back to focusing on your work and minimize the distractions.

And you will give the folks around you the impression you know your stuff.