You need to get to the core
It would appear that Mike Figliuolo , author of “One Piece of Paper, the simple approach to powerful personal leadership” and I agree on at least one thing: Leadership starts with self. I have said this already, so forgive me for insisting but this is truly fundamental. In his book, he gives a roadmap of what it means, and how you go about finding out.
A lot of people will say, what do you mean leading myself? I know myself. I know what I am good at, what I can and cannot do and most importantly, I know what needs to get done around here. OK. Fair enough. But this is not what I mean. So, let me ask you (as you will read in the book, if you read it) Why do you get out of bed in the morning? If your answer is to go to work, then you are already in trouble. Nobody will follow a leader who only shows up to put in her 10 hours.
I am not talking about actions so much as I am thinking of mindset. Other questions I would like you to answer are : What is in the way of your success? What do you keep leaving out of your life? What is non-negotiable for you? What is recurring in your life and you don’t seem to be able to deal with?
Why would I want to know the answer to these questions? Actually, it is not so much that I would want to know. It should be you. But all the same, the reason why you want to know the answer to these questions is because they lead to the real core of you and that means authenticity and yes, you guessed it, authenticity is a mandatory feature in order to successfully exercise and maintain a leadership role. There is no way around this one.
Besides, when you stop trying to sustain who you are not, and finally become who you really are, real growth occurs. All you have to do, is show and share who you are. Imagine coming to work and doing that every day?
Make sure you get it right. Ask an executive coach to help. They can.
How you lead yourself, and others, matters.