The Leader Within You
April 20, 2013
Whether you are a leader of a team or not – everyone has a leader within.
I just presented a keynote for Duke-NUS in Singapore on this very topic. In the presentation I covered the three elements of leveraging the leader within. They are:
1. Developing higher self awareness
2. Developing leadership skills
3. Leveraging your leadership style
The most masterful leaders have extremely high levels of self awareness. They know themselves well and they have learned to self manage their behavior for optimal results. Level one awareness would be simply knowing your self, but high level awareness includes knowing what pushes your buttons. When you know what makes you defensive and what irritates – you can choose new and different behaviors when faced with those familiar people or situations that cause you to react. This means that rather than ‘push back’ against people or situations you develop new skills that assist in dealing with the most difficult situations.
Developing leadership skills may seem like a ‘no brainer’ however leadership skills are constantly evolving. What you may have learned about leadership years ago through school or in courses may no longer be relevant today. With the constant face pace of change we need to make a lifelong commitment to learning the latest influences on being a masterful leader.
The third item which is knowing your leadership style goes deeper into understanding what motivates you and excites you as a leader. Knowing your style allows you to know the areas that you need to develop. The styles awareness also helps with better understanding others. Today knowing leadership styles includes knowing factors such as culture, gender, generational, work values and more.
The future workplace is heading towards shared power and collaborative leadership. We will always need ‘main leaders’ who drive projects forward and there is a shift with the influence of generations x and y towards sharing power and the concept that everybody is a leader.
Here is a picture of me with the event organizer where I presented “The Leader Within You”