“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” – Jane Goodall

I love this quote!

It puts into perspective how we as leaders influence our businesses and organizations every day with every interaction and every decision. This quote also reinforces the guiding principle behind one of my all-time favorite books, The Magic of Thinking Big by Dr. David J. Schwartz, which is “You are what you think you are.”

Take a moment and think about that for yourself – you are what you think you are.

What have your thoughts been?

Empowering?
Confidence building?
Solution-oriented?

Or

Defeating?
Limiting?
Doubting?

Our thoughts are powerful and shape how we see ourselves.

That perspective shapes our filter on what we see, what we say, and what we do. We all have times when we can get into our heads and not even realize that we have started down a path of self-doubt.

And could thoughts have influenced your decisions?

...

When you think of point of view or POV as it relates to a book, it’s the perspective of the character and how the story is told. Are you coming from the main character’s vantage point or more of an observer and not knowing what’s happening with their inner thoughts?

Same can be said for leadership and driving your overall vision forward.

Just take a moment and think about where you are in your organization or business….. are you in the weeds? Are you really heavily in the details? Or are you at the 10,000 or 100,000 foot view?

Changing your point of view can help you see progress from a different perspective.

It can help you determine what changes are needed.

Each vantage point gives you a different perspective, and each one helps you to change your point of view.

When you run into a challenge, do you typically view them as a problem or opportunities to do something different?

Sometimes shifting your point of view makes it easier or even quicker to find a...

So let's talk about something that seems almost contradicting to anyone pursuing their goals, leading their organization or running their business - the fear of success.

Yep.

That’s a thing.

The fear of success.

And if you’re like me, you’ve had to face this fear before, and sometimes it comes back up when you least likely expect it.

If you aren’t sure what this looks like, consider the following:

• Are you playing small?
• Are you not really putting yourself out there?
• Are you lacking confidence when sharing your ideas?
• Are you scared or reluctant to take on that high visibility, challenging project that you know is a great fit for you and will shine a lot of light on you and your work?

If you answered “Yes” to any one of these, the fear of success is a likely culprit.

So, how do you turn it around? How do you deal with the fear of success?

It’s super simple – recognize that it’s there and keep going anyway.

It doesn’t mean...

To be a positive, strong and influential leader, you have to develop and strengthen a leadership practice that is authentic to you. Whether you’re running your own business or leading teams or projects in the corporate world, your leadership practice is built by consistently honing your skills, gifts, and abilities.

It’s a choice you make day in and day out, regardless of title. And to honor that choice to be the leader you know you’re meant to be will require changes from you.

Such as your habits.

Those little things that we do every day, and many times, on autopilot are important to change. Yet when your habits change, you’ll see the results and they will become your new norm. So, here are five habits for you to evaluate and adjust as appropriate for where you are and where you want to go:

Number 1 - Positive leaders are continually learning

They are looking to expand their knowledge and strengthen their skills.

For instance, reading or listening to a few...

So let's talk about continual learning, and specifically when you've invested money or time or both to advance or strengthen your skills as a leader. 

Perhaps it's a small investment relatively speaking like reading or listening to a book. Maybe it's a course or seminar you attended, or training your company has sent you to for the day.  Or perhaps it's working with a coach or consultant. And even it didn't cost you money, it was your time spent there, including the time spent creating the space to go and getting caught up again (or close to it) once you returned.

When you first went through the course, the seminar, or even worked with your coach, you probably took some notes as a way to help you process what you're learning. Once the course, seminar or coaching sessions are finished, you have every intention of fully implementing what you've learned.

Then more time passes, and although you know you learned a lot, you might feel like you should have learned more or...

 As a leader, you are presented with new information each day.

This process of continually receiving and synthesizing information helps you to make informed decisions in order to support your team and achieve the company’s overall vision.

Sometimes it may feel like you have too much to work with and other times, it may feel like you don’t have enough.

To compound the waves of data, as the leader, you are viewed as having “all the information”, so it might feel like saying “I don’t know” is not appropriate.

The thing is that although it may seem like you are expected to know all of the answers, you won’t.

You are expected to know how to get the answers and be clear with what is happening on your team or project, even if that means you know you need to learn more.

So how to do work with the information that you have?

I suggest leveraging your curiosity by accepting that you won’t have all the answers, but that you will be open...

 When I think of curiosity – I’m looking at it as someone who likes to learn. Someone who actively wants to find out more because they want to grow.

Deepen their practice

Deepen their knowledge

Try something new

As a leader – being curious is a big part of trying out new ideas. You are curious about what will happen. If something doesn’t pan out well, you’re curious as to why and trying something else to see if that creates success.

Being curious is about growth and learning

The inspiration for this post came from an experience when I was traveling home from Boston.

On the first leg of the return flight, I had a wonderful quick chat with a flight attendant. What stood out with this trip was how he engaged with those in first class. He specifically greeted each of them by name, then asked what they wanted to drink.

As I observed from my seat, it didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary, until I heard what he said. The fact that he...

You know I love quotes.

Sometimes they are little bursts of inspiration or motivation, and sometimes they are gentle reminders to take action to change.

When I first saw this quote by Therese Fowler: 

“Some rules are nothing but old habits that people are afraid to change”

two different paths came to mind – one was external and the other was internal.

Let’s take the external one first.

For your business to grow, systems and guidelines are essential. They create the opportunity to streamline work, increase productivity, set clear expectations, and map processes so that everyone involved is on the same sheet of music. These can easily become habits for the business or organization. Habits because it’s what is known and expected, even if they don’t make sense anymore.

What was helpful at one time may be outdated now, but unless it’s revisited and reexamined, it will continue to do what it’s always done.

To make sure your...

 If your mindset is aligned with making your team a priority and taking care of your people, then your actions will follow suit.

Your team will feel the difference and start engaging in a more meaningful way with you, each other, and those outside of your organization.

This mindset shift will set a new level of excellence for you.

When your actions and language are congruent with this new mindset, your team will rise to the level you set and they will start doing more because they will feel appreciated.

As a leader, you set the bar of excellence for your business and organization. If you have a mindset that is about continually learning, improving and growing, then you are more than likely looking at your habits and making decisions of what to continue or change. If you are a bit fearful of change, which we all can be at times, there might be some habits that are allowing fear to have more of a voice than it should. When that happens, try shifting your perspective on...