Leadership is no longer inherited, no longer a position that is given to an individual due to the length of service with a company, no longer a role that is defined by title and bottom line profits. Leadership is about an attitude, about a choice, about how you live your life everyday, about how you show up and how you engage with people. It is about your vision, how you inspire people and the legacy you want to create and leave.
We can all learn how to be leaders in our own right. How you lead other people starts with how you lead your own life. Do you know what your strengths are? Do you create the opportunity to ‘play’ to them every day? Have you got the courage to run your own race? Do you know what inspires you, so that you can inspire others?
True leadership is about converting the knowledge you have about you, your team, your company and the environment into action, resulting in personal growth, individual team member growth and the Company’s growth. The most sustainable way to do this to ritualize the knowledge you have, to ensure that your actions are consistent and yield results.
1. Self-Leadership
You can only lead others if you have learnt to lead yourself
- You can’t do good if you don’t feel good
- Be alibi-free – the buck stops with you
- Read – expand your knowledge base
- Live in the now
2. Have a Vision
- Find the meaning in what you do and share this with your team in terms of a VISION. We all need a purpose greater than ourselves to motivate us. Do you make a difference?
3. Lead from your heart
- If you make a promise, deliver on it
- Practise active listening
- Show compassion with your team
- Make candour one of your values
4. Reward and recognise
- Praise is free
- Show appreciation – it must be, specific, immediate, personalised and in public
- Hunt for good behaviour
5. Embrace change
- Go with the natural flow of things
- Remember every invention is the result of change
- The best way to deal with change is knowledge
- Sell the opportunity of change to the team
6. Focus on what is important
- What are YOUR high yield activities?
- Switch from being busy to achieving results through time/self- management
7. Create a legacy
- Start something that other people will continue to build on
- Begin with the end in mind
Some Inspiration
“Nothing so conclusively proves a man’s ability to lead others, as what he does from day to day to lead himself.”
Thomas J. Watson
“Leadership is communicating people’s worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.”
Stephen Covey
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