By: Michael DeVenney
Do you have the capacity to be a leader?
Leaders multiply results. Working individually is about you. Working as a leader brings value to those around you as well as for you. Individual performance can solve problems and create solutions. Acting as a leader provides a bigger future with lasting impact and growth.
First and foremost, leadership is a mindset.
What is your choice?
Leadership is a big word – a word that can change your life and for those around you. Many of us question if it relates to us. Most of us struggle to define it.
Picture it first. Rather than trying to define it, how do you picture leadership? When you think of a leader, who do you see? What picture comes to mind? When you hear the word leadership or leader, what or who do you see?
Take a moment and describe what you see. It helps to have a visual image as so much more is said in a picture than in words.
Each of us will have a different picture. Each of us has the capacity to be a leader. Knowing where to start as a leader begins with knowing ourselves first.
What do you need to know about yourself to be a leader?
Answer why you should be a leader first. We all have roles that we play in our professional and personal lives. Where can you expand your impact by taking a leadership role? In what roles can you work as a leader and support the performance of others? Where can you be a leader to influence growth of results and positive change for a better future?
Where do you want and need to take a leadership role?
Now, you need to see yourself as a winner in these roles. You need to have a passion for your cause, communicate a compelling vision of the future, and coach people to better and more meaningful performance so they contribute to the vision and enjoy their journey.
Knowing yourself is not about developing charisma or a stronger, more outgoing personality. To know yourself is to develop your true character. People follow those who have an authentic voice.
- Know how to play to your values
- Know what motivates you
- Know your natural instincts for personal initiative and action
- Know your principles for success
Gaining clarity on your values, motivators, instincts and principles provides you with the compass to guide your leadership. Your leadership compass navigates the challenging and fast-paced world of change and differing agendas you face. It steers your decisions and sets the right direction for leading not only yourself but your organization and shareholders. Without a clear leadership compass, you will be challenged with authentic and true actions – you will question the right course. Without an authentic leadership compass, you will not gain the credibility and confidence you need to be a successful and effective leader.
Your Values
One of the main reasons we procrastinate and don’t invest fully is that the objective does not match our values. We operate against a set of core values which identify what is most important to us. Our core values are the beliefs which guide our life – our actions, decisions and commitments. Whether we know them or not, they are inherent in ourselves. In clarifying our values, we make clear our beliefs in how the game should be played. We know what is most important and what fits for us and what doesn’t.
Developing and supporting achievement in others and helping them win needs clarity of our own values. Values are the foundation for a definite and consistent message that people can buy into. With our values clearly communicated, we know how to face the competition confidently. You can only work effectively with your team when they know what is most important to you and align with your values. The actions you take will be guided by your values – having them front and center makes it easy to make decisions that fit best for you.
Your Motivators
Great leaders have a passion and energy for their work. You need to know plain and simple why you are doing what you are doing. What motivates you determines your success as a leader.
Motivation is about what keeps you learning and growing, what keeps you young and fresh, what keeps you giving back and what makes you a better person over time. Finding your motivators forces you to try to be the best that you can be. You see in the mirror and have a clear vision of what will lead you forward. Leading yourself is generally the most difficult person to lead – knowing your personal motivators provide the clarity to go with the flow.
Why should anyone be led by you? This is a difficult question that needs to be answered. People need to know what motivates your leadership to decide if they will follow your path. You are the model and they need to see you clearly. Defining your motivators shows why you are in the game and why people should be on your team.
Your Instincts
Your natural instincts are the missing link to connect energy and ability with performance. Knowing what you want and really wanting it are not enough. We each have a unique ability to achieve and perform. We are hard-wired to take action in certain ways and trying to work against the grain is like white-water rafting against the current. We all know what happens when you try to fight the current.
Knowing your natural instincts defines your advantage for achievement and how you can win your best results individually and together with others. Your instincts determine how you set goals, take initiative, organize yourself, schedule your time, learn, accept change and communicate.
Instincts have a tremendous impact on your ability to succeed. Sadly, most of us leave it to chance. Research shows that less than 20% of people actually work naturally based on their instincts. That means eight out of ten players on your team are working against the current and not able to achieve their best results. Not playing to your instincts can create frustration, stress and conflict – you limit your potential.
Instincts also explain how we work together. Less than 5% of people in the world share your natural instincts so it is likely that 95% of people will do things differently than you. Knowing your instincts gives you a step up to lead and perform at your best.
Your instincts also stay constant throughout your life so rather than leaving it to luck, clarifying your natural instincts is the best way to leadership success.
Your Principles
What are your principles of success? For an organization to win there needs to be clear criteria for success. Without clarity, people make assumptions and there may be many different versions of what success means and this limits the ability for a team to work together collectively for shared success. We need to a clear future and leaders can remove the uncertainty with principles of success that are explicit and straightforward.
Your success principles outline how you want people to play the game. People know what you want, how you want them to see it and the support you need.
As a leader, to be successful you need to know yourself first. Only in knowing yourself will you have and project the confidence needed for people to be led by you. You know what you do best and how to bring out the best in others.
- Providing the technical expertise, training and resources to win
- Showing the way through a vision for success
- Putting people in the right places to perform well
- Reflecting and providing perspective on progress and ways to play better
- Protecting the confidence of others to take the steps to grow and develop
- Removing uncertainty and showing direction
Where Does Leadership Fit in Your Life?
Ordinarily, we choose a vocation – without considering leadership as a component of that vocation. Working and acting as a leader in your position moves you from a vocation to a calling. You will have a calling that will be a catalyst for growth and change for you and those around you.
Your leadership abilities flow from who you are as a person – your values, talents, styles, and self-image. Self-leadership is the basis for all leadership.
Knowing yourself makes you more effective in working with others. It gives you insight into how your behavior affects them positively or negatively. Knowing yourself enhances flexibility – you gain interpersonal agility and improve your awareness of how you can best contribute in various situations. Knowing yourself gives you more confidence in the future you are planning for yourself. Self-aware people know where they are headed and why.
We all have the capacity to lead. We do not need to wait for a title or position. Think about the roles in your life where you could have a greater impact – where you could be a leader. Visualize the results you could achieve if you worked as a leader. You need to make the choice to move beyond the role of individual performer to being a leader of others’ performance to achieve your greatest success.
Leadership is taken – not given. You make the choice.
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