How to Become the Leader You Would Like to Follow!
Personal leadership is about influencing and leading yourself foremost –before leading others.
The title of this post is tricky, but basically what it is trying to say is that you’d be so proud of who you are that YES, you’d go to the end of the world for yourself. You believe in her/him/they. Wholeheartedly.
Now leadership is not easy. From a young age, most of us are not really trained to become a leader. We’re actually more trained to be a follower, due to our schooling and how we were raised.
To change from being a follower to being a leader, you need:
- either a good mentor and/or
- a leadership coach and/or
- education so you can own your own personal leadership: know how to influence yourself.
Personal Leadership coaching is designed to find, or hone, leadership potential within you. To support you in becoming more leader-like, both inside and out, questions are asked. Questions like ‘how self-directed are you, what areas need development– emotionally, mentally, socially, physically, or communication-wise– as well as how have you cultivated your potential till now?
It is wise to choose a coach who can objectively yet specifically focus on you. A leadership general course often trains “leaders” to follow a certain thinking process. In reality, that approach just scratches the surface. You don’t just want to know the tip of the iceberg. It is necessary to understand who you are, consciously and unconsciously, so that you know how best to maximize your potential. In other words, what is below the surface, what lives in you?
Becoming a leader is all about knowing how to enjoy being your personal best (choosing greatness), learning, listening, taking risks, daring to show up, making the hard choices, and wise decisions. Thus discerning why you want what you want.
From this kind of strong foundation, you can lead yourself (and influence others, if that is what you aspire to do.)
Now, society expects a leader in a leadership position to be an outstanding citizen, possessing integrity, clarity, and wisdom. Society expects that a leader will not abuse her or his power. (Don’t we read fairy tales about heroic inspiring role models with our kids because we want them to understand that there is a better way to be?)
My team and I often come across unrealistically high expectations placed on leaders working in companies and communities. Partly that is because as a society, we project a lot of idealistic behaviors, regarding what we expect leaders to do for ‘us.’ By this, I mean that we want them to take responsibility for solving all our problems.
These demanding and unrealistic expectations result in:
- The creation of a situation in which the followers with unrealistic expectations get confused and don’t see their own responsibilities, which completely thwarts the ability to make leadership their personal quest–to become a leader in their own right.
- A failure to recognize that we, and all other leaders, are only human. A leader can’t possibly have answers all the time. Expecting this of a leader in the team, business or community can set them up for failure. Realistically, any leader needs a good team in place to make things happen and we could be part of that great team!
- Believing the unrealistically high expectations can lead us, leaders, away from what we can do, from what we can take on, away from our authenticity, away from our Personal Leadership.
If you or your team(member) are ready to be coached in Personal Leadership, becoming the leader you would like to follow, email us today: contact@centerofinnovationforleaders.com and we will schedule a conversation with you.
Photo: Gabrielle Henderson @ Unsplash