Helloooo dear Steemians ! Today I thought I would talk about how Leadership perfectly interacts with Personal Development. Who would have thought, right?
Each and every time I coached a new Team Leader, I was asked the same things:
“can you help me lead my team and how can I gain trust and respect?”
And every time, I saw their stunned face when I told them bluntly:
“the way to lead others is to lead yourself first”.
Silence. Oops.
“Seriously? ”
“I’m afraid so! “
In other words, they assumed they would lead others while in actual fact, they had to improve on their own qualities before they could naturally lead others. Sounds odd? Please allow me to develop.
The questions I was systematically asking them were:
- How confident are you about your own work? And in yourself?
- How much do you trust yourself?
- How much do you love yourself?
- How much do you want to improve?
- Do you think you’re smart?
- Do you think you can learn and improve?
You see, all those questions lead a new Team Leader to look inward and not seek for answers outside of themselves.
Because, how can you trust someone if you don’t trust yourself? In order for a Leader to give something, they must possess that thing to start with. It’s a bit like a well-intentioned person who wants to give money to a friend, except they don’t have any money. How is it possible to give something we don’t have?
The great news is, it’s a matter of improving who we are and the qualities we need to display so that we can project greatness onto others. Before reaching that level of excellence, forget it. A leader who wouldn’t have started that work on themselves would:
- question themselves all the time
- use false authority to have things done
- not listen so that “communication” would be a one way street only
- overthink every decision they make
- ask every colleague they can before making a decision
- wonder at all times what their team members think about them
- micromanage and wouldn’t let their team members breathe
- or ignore issues not to face them
- blame others
- not take responsibility
Maybe you know such Team Leaders. They are not bad people, well, they do display bad leadership skills, if we can call these actual skills, but most of the time they would like to do the right thing. And in fairness, it would only take the right training to get there, as long as they are open minded and agree to work on themselves.
The other great news is that once a Team Leader improves on their qualities, they not only improve their leadership skills, but also their life overall. They understand they have regained control of who they are and that the sky is the limit; they usually move on in their career or are asked to rescue other teams for instance. They are always the go to person and inspire others.
I do believe that this is the reason why strong Leaders are in demand. Irrespective of the industry they evolve around, irrespective of the type of teams they get, they get it. Numbers systematically increase, team members are productive, they thrive to establish a good team spirit.
Strangely enough, former bosses thought my techniques were odd, but most let me do as I wished because they were focusing on the great results I was getting. And all along, I was only applying Personal Development principles. Yes, we all can 😊.
Blessings X