Are you new to leadership and feeling a bit uncertain about who you want to be as a leader?
Perhaps you’re in a low level leadership role but aspire to leadership at a senior level?
Or, maybe you’ve made it into exec/senior leadership but you’re feeling uninspired, overwhelmed, or just not sure you’re living up to your full potential?
There are so many demands on leaders these days. Leaders are expected to be visionaries and master strategists, inspiring communicators with compelling messaging, perfect role models, oracles overflowing with wisdom, knowledge and expertise, and be all things for all people all of the time.
Just writing that feels heavy.
It’s a lot.
▫️A lot of responsibility. As a leader the buck stops with you.
▫️A lot of pressure. Huge work loads, not enough hours in the day.
▫️A lot of expectation. People look to you for advice, direction or reassurance.
▫️A lot of scrutiny. Employees are judging whether you lead by example, and regulators, shareholders, and other stakeholders will also be highly invested in your conduct, risk appetite and decision-making.
▫️A lot of uncertainty, complexity and paradox. Market conditions can change overnight, so you have to be ‘on’ all the time, hyper-aware, able to change direction with agility, and be open in your thinking.
Carrying this weight can trigger defense mechanisms.
🚩We may fear retaliation or rejection, so we appease and comply to self protect, even when we know we should be speaking up.
🚩We may criticise others to deflect from our own inexperience, fear of failure, or incompetence, or we may ‘hide’ from decision-making, to mask the fact we’re insecure and underperforming.
🚩Perhaps we micromanage others, but destroy trust and inhibit innovation, or we get consumed by the job, but then drive ourselves, and our teams, into burnout.
To thrive in today’s demanding leadership landscape, it’s vital, whatever rung of the corporate ladder you’re on, that you get to know yourself more deeply – your triggers, reactive responses and actions, internal assumptions and underlying habits of thought – all of which shape your behaviours.
Once these are revealed to you, and you understand what’s behind them, you are then empowering yourself to make different choices.
Choices that are grounded in your values, your integrity, compassion and positivity.
Coming from this place, you’ll be able to lead from your most creative self.
By embracing creativity in your leadership, you’re generating an environment that nurtures imagination, encourages collaboration, and supports experimentation.
When you lead with creativity, you unlock not just your own potential, but the full potential of your team and together you drive positive change within your organisation.
I don’t know about you, but for me, that feels lighter.
