Anyone Can Learn to Be a Better Leader

Occupying a leadership position is not the same thing as leading. To lead, you must be able to connect, motivate, and inspire a sense of ownership of shared objectives.
Heightening your capacity to lead others requires being able to see how you think and act, and how your behavior affects others. Leading well requires a continuous journey of personal development.

Yet people in leadership roles often eschew the long and challenging work of deepening self-insight in favor of chasing after management “tools”— preferably the “quick ’n’ easy” kind, such as personality type assessments that reduce employees to a few simplistic behavioral tendencies.

Tools can be handy aids to good leadership. But none of them can take the place of fearless introspection, feedback seeking, and committed efforts to behavioral change for greater effectiveness and increased positive impact on others.

The best way to an effective leadership is to take the following steps:

· Start with a problem you’d like to solve or a future result you’d like to achieve.

· Articulate why it’s important to you now.

· Seek quality information to base your approach on.

· Identify measures of success.

· Ground yourself with an intention.

· Choose behaviors to implement.

· Seek feedback.

· Review and celebrate progress.

The developmental journey is fascinating and fulfilling if you embrace it.

Source: Harvard Business Review
Author: Monique Valcour