The core to leadership strategy is simple:
To be a model.
Commit yourself to your own personal mastery.
It is one of the responsibilities of a leader to be a role model. How can leaders become good to great role models? Becoming the master of your most important domain, you, will help you as an individual acquire self-knowledge and at the same time promote self-development and growth. It will help you better develop the following characteristics:
• Understanding the direction of your life and therefore the direction of their group or organization
• Recognize reality and remain grounded in it.
• Think creatively and think outside of the proverbial box.
• Understand and work with and for change.
• View yourself as a part of the whole system and feel more deeply connected to others.
• Fully embrace and understand your influence over others, and use it to benefit everyone.
Mission and vision
It is important that as a leader, you understand the vision and the mission of your organization completely. By understanding the missions and vision of your organization, you can help clearly identify those methods that can be used most effectively to achieve the organization’s goals. This discernment is enhanced by being able to identify, embrace and live according to your guiding values and your own personal goals.
Embrace, or at least accept change
Knowing yourself, and your “hot buttons” in particular, will help you deal with change better. Change is one of few constants in this world. Leaders and organizations should be open to change. Accepting that change is inevitable helps prepare leaders and organizations to also change their methods to be able to continue to move toward goal and mission.
Know yourself, know your team
This will also help you deal better with difficult situations and pressures. Knowing yourself well, also opens you to knowing other people better. This will invariably help you, as a leader and as a teammate deal with your team member’s weaknesses and strengths honestly.
Effective leaders should understand the critical difference between criticism and critiquing. You must know how to give feedback and criticisms without always sounding as if you are chastising the person you are speaking with. The intention behind providing honest feedback must always be to give support. It must never be used to control other people. Knowing yourself well helps you develop effective ways of managing your own emotions. This will help you do better at responding to situations rather than merely reacting.
Personal integrity
Personal knowledge instills integrity, authenticity and confidence in everyone, but is vitally important to you as a leader. These are the characteristics which will help you have a clear vision, and at the same time make clearer and more decisive actions. This will improve your credibility, your on-th-job performance and will likely have additional beneficial effects on your work like and career plans.
Basics Matter
It is important to get back to the basics. The core for any organization, and the heart of any business success relies on human capital. As a leader, you must believe that you are capable of influencing change.
The most important human capital that you must be able to manage is yourself. As you honestly assess yourself, your strengths, and yes, weaknesses, you can begin to understand the world and the people around you. Master yourself, and you can master your world.
And yes, you have the right stuff already within you!
Thoughts?
Photo Credit: x-ray delta one via Compfight cc
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