What it Takes to Be a Leader
One of the signs of self-centeredness I noticed in my life is that if you are resenting anything that slows you down, it shows up almost as this righteous impatience.
If I’m totally honest, there are times in my life where I’m downright angry, mad, and frustrated at the people around me.
Why isn’t anyone carrying their weight? Why is this still broken? Why isn’t that working? Why haven’t we figured that out yet?
And it shows up almost as this righteous impatience.
It is connected to an impatience with myself that I thought somehow things would be easier by now.
I thought that things would be more streamlined by now.
In reality, all that’s happening is I’m becoming more equipped to take on bigger challenges.
It is these challenging circumstances that are cultivating a championship character inside of me even though I somehow feel like I’m failing constantly.
However, I’m being molded and being strengthened to handle bigger challenges.
It is a loss of perspective.
The Character of a Leader
What needs to happen here is a mental shift of what it means, what it takes, and what is required to be an influential leader,
It’s realizing that what got you here as a performer won’t get you there as a leader.
As a performer, I was able to control everything. I could just work harder. I could just get more organized. I could just like add more time. That is a part of the journey.
But as a leader, not everything is in my control. I’m having to work in and around and through other people.
My job is to influence the people around me as much as I can and to take responsibility for the mindset and the attitude of those around me.
I can’t control everything. I can’t make it happen all by myself.
Serving Others
But what I do want to do is develop my character.
If you want to increase the output of the team, you must strengthen the character of the leader.
The way that that happens is through dealing with challenges.
It is a shift in our focus from being self-centered to being service-centered.
The achiever’s trap is that I can accomplish more by doing it myself. It turns into this self-centered focus.
The mature step to becoming an influential leader is not to make things better and easier for myself.
It is to become service-centered.
How can I make things better for the people around me?
To be an influential leader means to be a service-centered leader which simply means to be others-focused.
It is breaking free of this paradigm that the world should revolve around me. That the organization should revolve around me and that all things happening is to make my life easier.
Instead, it is to embrace the idea that I am becoming more equipped to handle more difficult circumstances.
I need to step outside of what is easy and convenient for me so I can rise and help make things easier and more convenient for others.
That is being an influential leader.
Do you notice this about you? What do you think? Comment below.
