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...

It’s another day at the office, and it seems like everything that can go wrong has, and you are frustrated. Maybe it seems as though each time you complete an item on your action list, three new items are added. Or perhaps you can see delays in schedule or cost over runs and no sign of improvement. Or perhaps you are short-staffed and do not have a new employee starting anytime soon to help with the workload.

I know I’ve had each of these situations happen before, and I definitely felt frustrated and overwhelmed. It can be easy to let the things that aren’t going well to be all that we see. And when we focus on those frustrations, we tend to see even more of them.

Soon enough, it feels like a continual spiral of overwhelm and frustrations that can be challenging to stop. When that happens, how do you go about changing your perspective?

The answer is easy, but it takes effort and practice.

When you look for the positive, you will start to feel a shift. Not only will...

There is power in one.

One word may brighten someone else's day or tear it down.

One shift in attitude or perspective can completely change how a challenging situation is handled.

Focusing on the one person in front of you during a face to face or that one person on the other end of the phone for that one conversation and ignoring the distractions will communicate volumes of respect, appreciation, and engagement.

Focusing on the one step that needs to be done now versus the next 20 will minimize overwhelm and increase productivity.

There's power in one - take some time today to leverage that power to its fullest and feel the shifts that it will make in you as you lead.

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 business...

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 change – it’s neither good or bad, it just IS.

Let's set the stage a bit:  

It’s the start of the week, and you have a list a mile long full of tasks that need to be done.

You take a sip of your coffee (or in my case, tea) and wonder how you are going to get it all done.

Perhaps you start checking email, only to realize you need to make a phone call before you head to your first meeting – either virtual or in person.

After finishing the call, you realize you need to update a few notes to be ready for the meeting, but you still have to get this one email sent before you leave, so you switch gears again and finish the email.

Then with only a few minutes to spare, you scribble some thoughts on a sheet of paper and race to your meeting.

As the morning progresses and you are in another meeting, you realize there are some emails you want to check, so you decide that you can listen to the meeting and respond to a few emails, too.

Does this sound at all like something you’ve experienced?

If so, you probably...