Mar 18 Are You a Leader Who Grows Beyond Challenges?
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Too many of our leaders think that dealing with headaches is the name of the game, and their whole mindset is based on reacting to problems. I want you to think differently and make your developmental growth and that of those around you your main challenge.
Are You Your Biggest Adversary?
Anyone can conjure up negative possibilities and see life as an adversarial experience. But I can tell you from years of experience as a senior executive in a Fortune 100 company that if you adopt that approach you’ll burn out like a comet.
You don’t successfully coach, lead, and inspire athletes by reminding them that every time they suit up for a game they could suffer a career-ending injury, do you?
No, you remind them that they are winners who have the power to succeed if they will just commit to the process and stay flexible in the moment to make the right decisions on the field. Tell that to yourself and believe it, then tell it to your team.
Why is There So Much Corporate Leader Burnout?
Leadership that sustains isn’t about gearing up to do battle. Do that and eventually you’ll meet your match and experience defeat. Even Napoleon met his Waterloo.
Instead of imagining your next adversary, acknowledge that the most powerful and deeply-embedded enemy you could ever meet is your own self-defeating mind. The good news is your best weapon is a solution-focused mind that taps into the unlimited subconscious self.
See your main leadership challenge as an invitation to grow a little today, a little more tomorrow, and measurably more this quarter. Do that and in one year you will have outgrown your role. Then the only obvious path is one of predictable promotion to bigger and better things.
Visualize Growth and then Stretch Into It
Also, if your goals and dreams aren’t adapting to scale, how will your career get you to that ultimate place you want to be as a leader? Picture it. Feel it. Become it.
I love the quote by Brendon Burchard, one of my mentors, who says “Only two things change your life: Either something new comes into your life or something new comes from within.”
When working with some of my platinum clients I add another idea to that quote and tell them, “If you want something new to come into your life you have to let go of something old to make room for it within yourself.”
Plenty of changes are on the way that we all need to be ready to embrace in 2015. How do you plan to update and upgrade your internal view of yourself to stay aligned with your ultimate goals and evolving dreams?
As a pioneering and visionary innovator, Sarah is a certified professional image consultant and brand strategist, speaker, trainer and author. Her company, Illustra Consulting, provides leading-edge image and brand management strategies for top leaders and high achievers who wish to take their career to the next level. She also delivers innovative and inspiring corporate workshops to assist large organizations in strengthening their corporate brand.
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Copyright © 2015, Sarah Hathorn, AICI CIM, CPBS 1-800-267-3245, [email protected]
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Sarah Hathorn, CEO of Hathorn Consulting Group, is the go-to-expert in working with leaders and companies to create successful corporate DNA. As an executive coach, consultant and speaker she collaborates globally with clients and brands such as Deloitte, McKesson, Kimberly-Clark, Sherwin-Williams, Home Depot and other leading organizations.
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