Leadership is the number one skill professionals need to master to create the career and life they want. Leadership trumps every other skill you need. Everyone can become a great leader. And, it’s not as hard as you’ve been led to believe.
Recently, a new dentist told me, “My father was a natural-born leader. My mother was not. I think I got my mother’s genes.” He was making my first point about why dentists often don’t step into their potential as leaders. It’s not in the genes. It’s in the mind.
Great leadership is an inside-out game. Before leaders ever lead anyone else, they learn to lead themselves. And, leaders go first. Before they expect their team to behave like leaders, they learn to behave that way themselves. People don’t follow great leaders because they have to. They follow them because they want to, because they trust and believe in them.
Here are my top suggestions for becoming a great leader:
- Take 100% responsibility. Leaders don’t hold employees, economies, patients, bosses, or spouses responsible for the state of their career, income, job satisfaction or personal happiness. They know what shows up is always traceable to something they’re tolerating, ignoring, blind to, or in which they’re complicit.
- Challenge Your B.S. (Belief Systems… but it’s probably not that different than what you initially thought it stood for!) We are all guided by our beliefs about what is right or wrong, good or bad, true or false, possible or impossible. Great leaders get good at accessing broader possibilities because they constantly challenge what might be possible or true, who’s already mastered something, and what additional, untapped resources might be available. They know there is never a lack of resources, only a lack of resourcefulness.
- Raise Your E.Q. Research shows that a high E.Q. (emotional intelligence) is essential to great leadership. Learning to use your internal guidance system to set yourself securely on a strong, positive emotional platform before you make important decisions or have any crucial conversations is imperative.
When you think, speak, and act like a leader almost everything becomes easier to do and achieve. Get yourself trained as a leader. Don’t put it off. Learning the skills to lead yourself and others to greatness is your first step to creating the career and life of which you are dreaming. And if you need help getting there, we’re only a phone call away.
“The most powerful leadership tool you have is your own personal example.”
John Wooden
