Aren't There Places We Still Need to Go as Leaders?

We’ve all seen the Eleanor Roosevelt quote below, but it always bears repeating, I think. It forces us to remember that for our own personal development, for our professional growth, there are places we still need to go.

 

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you must stop and look fear in the face…you must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Here’s a simple list of 14 items to challenge thinking…and going.

1. Use your most deeply held convictions to guide your leadership.
2. Openly acknowledge that your stand may be unpopular, and then explain why it is important for others to consider your point of view.
3. Attack the problems, not the people.
4. In meetings, speak up clearly; verbalize your concerns so they can be discussed.
5. Give people the feedback they need, even if it’s difficult to do so.
6. Examine yourself - do you avoid passing negative information upward in the organization?
7. Stand behind your people and back their decisions.
8. Look at your team and decide if you are spending more energy protecting them or holding them accountable.
9. Take the calculated risk; ask yourself, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” then decide if going forward is worth the risk.
10. Show the courage to let your people learn from their mistakes.
11. Believe that you have the power to make a difference and accept the responsibility of trying.
12. Get a fresh perspective on your team’s strategies by looking at them from the viewpoint of a customer or a competitor.
13. Learn more about other functional groups within the organization to understand how you affect one another.
14. Take a course on creative thinking – it will unlock some of those mental locks we reviewed the other day.

Question for you:

Which of these Tips would be the one, two or three you would choose to work on for yourself?

Strong Relationships + Solid Leadership = Success for Everyone