Don’t know about you, but I’ve been amazed lately at how social media has become a place for criticism, negativity and whining.
Don’t get me wrong, I love social media and use it for many reasons. But more and more I realize that self-leadership is one of the most important success factors for people today. I learnt years ago, through a gut-wrenching tragedy, that you can’t lead anyone if you can’t lead yourself.
Yes, the world is speeding up, you want to achieve more, and you know how frazzled everyone can feel when you have new projects, deadlines, challenges and the unknown to face. Tempers rise, difficult people become more difficult and you feel really overloaded and overwhelmed.
Emotional Intelligence
I get it that you feel crazy busy in a complex world of too much but finger pointing doesn’t help anyone! The best way to deal with feeling frustrated and/or overwhelmed is to learn how to manage yourself as well as others. Basically, I’m talking about mastering your Emotional Intelligence EQ.
You’re probably reading this thinking, “She’s crazy, I’m too busy to squeeze in anything else right now.”
Well, consider that your current experiences are a great opportunity to reflect on and learn. How could you change things so that you can equip yourself with new strategies and tools to improve your leadership capacity and that of your team too?
Self-Leadership
Self-leadership is the key to authentic, visionary and every-one-on-board leadership. Improving your self-awareness and self-management skills will absolutely improve your leadership skills and also lay the foundation to improve your social awareness and relationship management skills; EQ competencies essential for success in the 21st century.
Giving yourself time to recharge and reflect on your self-leadership will pay dividends.
Armed with a positive mindset and a can-do approach, I’ve lead teams of all sizes all over the world for the past 20 years and I’ve always tried to reflect on my actions and plan new goals to take me forward. Here are 3 success factors that I’ve learned along the way that I’m pretty sure will work for you too.
Success Factors for Leaders
1.Focus
This is a skill we must master to be truly successful in the 21st Century. Making the time to focus and set some BIG personal and professional goals ensures continual self-improvement. Know your top priorities for the year, each 90 days and each week. Focus on your highest priorities first thing every morning. Yes there will be times you will be knocked off course, but the sooner you get back to your BIG Goals the more productive and successful you will become.
2. Self-manage
You can’t lead anyone unless you can lead yourself. It’s time to take care of yourself; physically, mentally and spiritually, if you want to lead others well. Make the time and take care to eat well, exercise regularly, it’s good for your body and your brain, get into the mindfulness stuff, even just 2 – 5 minutes a day, focus on the positive and plan mini-adventures every day, adventures every week and BIG adventures every 6 months or so to keep your creativity and productivity at super high levels.
3. Be a learner
Think back and reflect on what and how you can improve your self-management and self-leadership for the next 90 days. “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other,” said John F Kennedy, former President, USA. Adopt a growth mindset and constantly reflect on your practices and find ways to improve your skills and strategies.
To help you focus on growing your leadership skills I’ve created interactive workshops and leadership coaching packages to take you and your team to a whole new level.
Contact me if you would like to learn more.
If you have any questions flick me off a quick email to maxine@thinkstrategic.com.au
Would love to hear how you go developing and growing your leadership skills. Remember that by growing your leadership skills you will be able to grow leadership skills in your teams too. How fantastic is that?
