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Leaders Are Willing To Work On Themselves

Leaders spend much of their time directing their attention outwards. Well, that makes sense, doesn’t it? Leaders are employed to get things done. They have tasks that need doing, people who need managing, and goals to achieve. And they need to be available to people and in touch with what is happening in the organisation.

In focusing all their attention on other people and things, leaders can easily lose sight of themselves. They can get lost in the demands of people and situations and the task. When this happens, leaders lose their ability to make the unique contribution that they could be making. They simply react to circumstances, moment to moment, and act out of habit.

Acting out of habit keeps us going round in the same circle, time after time, reacting the same way, making the same mistakes, and causing the same conflicts. Nothing different will happen as long as you don’t pay attention to the way you act and react.

Have you ever found yourself in a driveway on an old address that you no longer live at! Being present and paying attention has us leading with intentionality and purpose.

The beginning of change is when you start to pay attention to your behaviour, and start to think about why you behave the way you do. What are your feelings about the person or the situation? What drives you? What do you fear? What do you long for?

In our programs we emphasise the need for leaders to be willing to work on themselves. Genuine change comes from a combination of true self-knowledge and new behaviours. And only genuine change will make a great leader of you.

What does it mean, to work on yourself? Does it mean you become self-obsessed? No, that’s not it. In fact, you will find that, as you become more aware of your own thoughts and behaviour, you will see how they get in the way of you paying real attention to others. As you become more aware of yourself, you will simultaneously become more aware of the person in front of you, and what their thoughts and feelings are.

Then the possibility of creating genuine, productive, trusting relationships opens up, and you have started to become the great leader you can be.

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