Today’s companies have it all backwards. Leaders have a thirst and drive for answers to their biggest challenges.
Thousands of leadership books are published yearly to feed that thirst. Buying those books to find the right answers for your company is where leaders make their biggest mistake.
Leadership is NOT about having the right answers. It’s about asking the right questions.
Imagine … you are walking through a nearby park with the intent of getting to the other side. Along the way, you run into a large brick wall that stops you dead in your tracks and prevents you from reaching your ultimate destination.
That’s what your limiting beliefs are like … large brick walls that prevent you from reaching your destination. These mental brick walls paralyze you. They block you. And above all else, they seem impossible to move.
You aspire to achieve great things, yet stay “small” for fear of failing.
What about the thousands of dollars you’ve invested in leadership books and training, yet still find yourself stuck in the same rut and don’t know how to get out?
Are you continuously swamped by the endless hours that your role demands, yet get diminishing returns from all your efforts?
You are not alone. Most leaders harbor fears, negative thoughts and emotions that seriously undermine their achievements. Here is one such story.
How One High Performing Leader Was Sabotaging His Own Potential
About 10 years ago, I worked with a leader being groomed to become President of a fast growing company.
When I was in my 20’s and 30’s, I was the queen of willpower. I have always thrived on achieving big goals. My downfall was using a “white knuckle” approach to achieving those goals.
Willpower Exhaustion
Because of my exertion-exhaustion approach, my world came crashing down with life threatening illnesses that cost me everything in my life. While I wished I had learned the lesson in a less traumatic way, there was a gift in that experience.
It catalyzed me to seek mindset tools and technologies to create results with ease and less effort. It motivated me to learn how the brain works and its impact on our thoughts, emotions and behaviors.
“Leading From Guts” drives extraordinary organizations and a company’s distinctive edge in the marketplace.
The inspiration for this article was the movie “The Rosa Parks Story” – a story about a simple seamstress and civil rights activist with unwavering toughness of character that, in 1955, changed the course of history and segregation in the U.S.
Her unwillingness to relinquish her seat on a segregated bus to a white person set in motion a whole chain of catalyzing events – including imprisonment, a boycott of the Montgomery Bus, a new civil rights organization led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and a repealing of the segregation law on buses in Montgomery.
Building leadership courage is not as mysterious as it sounds.
The 90 second video below is worth it’s weight in gold about moving forward with courage … even amidst fear and panic. You can hear the panic and anxiety in this 4th grader (and also notice her feet).
And you may even notice your own anxiety getting triggered and wondering why she would put herself through such an ordeal. Yet, in the end, she not only overcomes her fear. Notice what she says to herself once landing at the bottom.
As a leader, what can you learn from this 4th grader?
In July of this past year, I had the honor of meeting Mike Gustafsen, CEO, Virident Systems Technology with seasoned experience in growth driven companies/divsions at the C-level. His story as part of a panel discussion at a networking event – The Path to the C-Level – left such a strong impression that I asked him for an interview to share his secrets.
In my view, Mike embodies the essence of a great leader – a visionary, strategist, big thinker, leader of leaders, great team and culture builder, global thinker yet down to earth, authentic and the list goes on.
It’s that time of the year! Most business leaders are preparing for an executive off-site to define their company’s future direction for the new year.
Yet, in my 30 years experience of working with leadership teams and companies, the terms “vision,” “mission” and “values” are THE most overused, misunderstood and abused words in the business community today.
Vision statements, mission statements and strategic plans in many companies reduce to mere academic exercises with no real value in driving an organization forward. Why? Let’s take a look.
Why Most Company Visions Get an “F”: The Big 3
Your company’s vision lacks the necessary specificity and inspiration to pull your company forward.
