I believe every one of us is a leader whether you are leading people, systems, your business, your career, or your family and community, so we all need to develop our leadership skills. As we begin a brand new year and new decade, what will you be doing to develop as a leader and what does your team, business, or career need you to develop in order to thrive?
With this exciting start to 2020, I wanted to give you leadership growth tips you can focus on to develop as a leader in whatever arena you are leading. Since my belief is you are all leaders and that you all possess a leader within, even if you are not activating or owning it currently, here are some leadership development tips to set you up for a successful, fulfilling year.
First off I wanted to share the different areas of leadership and where you may be implementing leadership in your life. Here they are:
- Personal Development Leadership
- Life Leadership
- Career Leadership
- Business Leadership for Entrepreneurs
- Leaders of People, Teams, a Company, Community, or Group
- Health Leadership
- Planet/Earth/Nature Leadership
Life Leadership and Life Leaders
Now this is one category we all fall into because we are all leading our lives and responsible to step into the leadership role to create the life we want. Our life includes work, relationships, lifestyle, happiness, fulfillment, money or wealth, and success as each of us defines it. For many of you wealth is measured in time to do what you want, what you love, and time with who you cherish most. First off, you need to own that you are a leader, you have choice, and one way or another you are making decisions so are those supporting your best self and best life?
Here are a few questions and ideas to get you started in leading your life in 2020:
1. Are you living your life in alignment with your top values and if not, what is one step you will take to lead and live your values?
2. In what area of your life do you want to transform and why is this important to you or what will it give you? What leadership step will you take here?
3. Is who you are being in alignment with your best life and self? Who do you need to be to breakthrough habits and elevate to leading your best life?
In addition, these ideas and tips will help you lead the life you want to live:
- Develop a clear vision of what you want, visit it daily, and focus on it along with how it will feel
- Know yourself, your strengths, what excites you, and what brings you joy; strategically listen to and follow these. Challenge Yourself.
- Leaders manage fear and step forward for progress without any guarantees only calculated risk analysis
- Know the neuroscience of our brains is wired to avoid change, but if you want something to change or be different, you must accept change as a travelling companion with growth and development
Career Leadership
If you are a career professional or working as an employee, you are responsible for being the leader of your career growth and development. This is one of my favorite areas to coach people on because one of the hardest things for us to do on our own is lead ourselves. First off do you have a career path and progress plan? We all need to have a beginning framework with guide posts of where we want to lead our career and the progression steps that will elevate us along our career path.
As the leader of your career growth and development, here are a few leadership questions to ponder as you develop your career path in 2020:
- Where do I want to lead my career or what is the next progression step to advance my career?
- Do I want to advance into leadership or a higher position and if so are there skills or experience I need to gain for this?
- Am I happy both on the fulfillment scale and with the money I am making in my current career? If not, what do I need to be fulfilled or what step can I take to make more money?
One of the greatest assets a career professional can begin is developing their own personal and leadership brand to market themselves and their skills in a crowded, competitive market place. This is one of the areas I coach career leaders around; in addition, we design your own platform for visibility both online and offline.
What is one step you can take as a career professional in 2020 to raise your visibility and marketability where people are aware of your value?
Business Leadership Skills for Entrepreneurs
For all you solo entrepreneurs out there and business owners leading your own company, I know being a leader responsible for every aspect of your business is tough; it is also not realistic or recommended long term as scaling and growth occur. As entrepreneurs, the leadership skills you need to develop most are:
- Prioritization and Focus on what will build your business daily
- Being the visionary, leader, and driver of your business growth as much or more than being the technician or hire someone to do this
- Marketing, marketing, sales, marketing, value, value, value, visibility…
If you want a business, you signed up to market yourself and it! - Presenting or being the face of your business, building relationships & community, expanding your network, connecting to your audience
- Listening to your customers, matching market demand, delivering results
Here is one thing all entrepreneurs face and that is overwhelm. I was just reading about a successful entrepreneur who was reflecting back on their growth days and he said, they never even scraped the surface of all they could have done, but they focused on the most important task at hand that would grow their business every day. When Oprah started the OWN Network, her team was so overwhelmed with everything they had to do, that they constantly as a team would ask themselves, “What is the next thing we need to do or have to do right now?” Just start, do what you can, and do the most important next step.
The leadership skills entrepreneurs and small business owners need most are: delegation, focus on one thing or project at a time, extreme self care, time management and boundaries around work and home life, play to your strengths and hire out the rest, and build a support team including: freelancers, coaches, marketers, and virtual assistants.
Leadership for Leaders Leading a Team, Company, or Group
For all you leaders out there leading people, this is by far the most dynamic and challenging leadership role because with every person on your team comes a unique personality; additionally, instead of leading yourself which you can control, you are now leading others of which you have zero control, only influence. Developing your leadership skills to lead other people is the most important step you can take to become an effective leader.
If you are a new or emerging leader, building your confidence is going to be imperative to your success. Some of this confidence will develop with experience and the rest is an inside job that requires a daily practice. As a certified ACI Confidence coach, I step my clients through the neuroscience of increasing their confidence and how to become a confident leader.
Now, if you are a leader of a group of any size, you have probably already learned, and perhaps the hard way, that communication is key to great leadership. Improving your communication skills as a leader will bring clarity to the team, increase trust, improve productivity, and provide an environment whereby your team can perform at their peak and freely present more innovative ideas. C-IQ is a great communication skill for leaders to learn and implement with their teams as it is the neuroscience of communication and focuses on a We-Centric (c) approach that builds trust and engagement. You can learn more about C-IQ here as I am a certified C-IQ coach.
One of the greatest tools to develop yourself as a leader and to increase self awareness to your strengths and areas of weakness when working with or leading people, is to take a validated personality assessment. The Hogan Assessment is a great personality assessment that builds self awareness for leaders because it highlights your strengths, values, and potential derailers or weaknesses when you are stressed or tired. This type of personal leadership feedback will help you to perform at a higher and more effective level as a leader.
The Hogan Assessment is a leadership development tool I would recommend for leaders who lead people and or for their team where you could then have a team meeting to build self awareness of personalities in the team. This builds greater understanding, collaboration, communication, and performance.
Health Leadership as Health is Wealth
Some of you will know that my background is in health and therefore I know and have seen how important it is to be at our best, feel our best, and live our best life. I will not expand on it too much here as that will be a future blog post for you and or you can tune in to my podcast Peak Energy 4 Performance. However, what I will say is that without your health in body, mind, emotion, or environment, you have no solid foundation upon which to build your life, business, career or leadership. As the saying goes, ‘we focus so much on building our wealth, we lose our health to only then spend all our wealth trying to get our health back.” A J Materi
Lead your health as a priority for you, your life, and your loved ones. When we practice self care around our health, we are better leaders and we are also examples for those following our lead.
Now over to you, what are your leadership growth and development goals for 2020 and what is the first step you will take towards them?
If you want a leadership coach to elevate you in your career, business, or life goals, reach out for a complimentary coaching session to [email protected]
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