10 Keys to Unlocking Your Leadership

Would you like to increase your effectiveness, minimize your weaknesses, reduce your workload and achieve better results faster?

It seems to me like everyone talks about it; few understand it; even fewer truly unlock it!

• If you google it, you’ll get MILLIONS of results for it. 
• Parents need it to raise children well.
• Kids need it to reach their fullest developmental potential.
• Bosses need it to cast and implement vision farther and faster.
• Employees need it to contribute and advance.
• Friends need it to be loyal and accepting.
• Teachers need it to be a compassionate and effective educator.
• Coaches need it to build trust and be a role model.
• We ALL need to develop it for unlocking the best results in every area of our life.

 

It is LEADERSHIP!

Investing in yourself to become a better leader is critical if:

You have a purpose or impact to make in the world.

You have people that follow you online or in real life.

You want tomorrow to get better for yourself and people you care about.

You are in a titled position of authority at work or in a community.

You are a role model, coach or teacher in some capacity.

You want to produce bigger results at work and advance your career.

You influence somebody in your business or life that impacts your health, wealth or relationships.

 

Have you asked yourself…

What could change in your life if you developed as a leader?

What effectiveness could you add?

What weaknesses could you subtract?

How could you divide your workload?

How could you multiply your impact?

Would you like to know how to develop your leadership to get new results in your life? 

Here are 10 Keys for developing great leadership in your own life:

1. Influence: Intentionally increasing

John Maxwell always says “Leadership is influence, nothing more nothing less”.  

A simple definition of influence is the power that someone has over someone or something.

We have influence.  It may be positive or negative, but we have influence.  We don’t always know how we are influencing or how much.  

When we intentionally increase our influence, we broaden the possibilities of what can be achieved through our relationships at home, recreation and work.

As you are unlocking your life, where can you increase your influence to get different results?

Let’s look at the 5 levels of leadership developed by John Maxell.  It shows us that influence can be developed in 5 stages.  We cycle through these levels at different times with different people.   According to John Maxwell, our goal is to keep developing toward the Pinnacle level with other people that we lead and influence:

1. Position: Is when we receive a position or title with RIGHTS to lead
2. Permission: Is when we develop permission to lead through RELATIONSHIPS
3. Production: Is when we lead because we produce RESULTS for our self and others
4. People Development: Is when we lead by REPRODUCTION of leadership in other people
5. Pinnacle: Is when we lead because we have RESPECT from establishing a reputation

So what do these levels mean to increase my influence?

You are on a different level with each person in your life.  You must be intentional in how you develop as a leader to progress to the next level of influence with each person.

2. Priorities:      Working smarter not harder

We can’t actually manage time, but we can manage our priorities!

Disciplined us of our time to manage our priorities will allow us work smarter, not harder and often get the advantage over competition or obstacles.

Why managing our priorities can be challenging:

We mostly overestimate the importance of most things we spend time on

Too many priorities paralyze us from moving toward the best results

Small demands add up to big problems

Making everything a priority means nothing is a priority

Crisis or tragedy can shift priorities, so we need to be clear to react well

 

Accepting these principles will allow you to better unlock your priorities:

You cannot have or do it all

Good is the enemy of best

Proactive is better than reactive

Important should be before urgent

Here are 3 key strategies to manage your priorities proactively:

1. Figure out the top 20% of what is most important and invest 80% of your time and resources there
2. Determine your 3 R’s
   • What Is Required Of Me?
   • What Gives Me The Greatest Return?
   • What is Most Rewarding?
3. Make Room for Margin
   • Margins Improve Self-Awareness
   • Margins Give You Needed Think Time
   • Margins Provide You With Energy Renewal.

So here are some questions to ask yourself to better manage your priorities:

• Where do I need to work smarter instead of harder?
• What must I change to stop trying to have it all?
• What good things can I stop doing in order to do the best?
• What must I do to become more proactive instead of reactive?
• What can I do to stop doing urgent but unimportant things?

 

3. Character: Leading by example

Gahndi said “A man  of character will make himself worthy of any position he is given”

Are your values, thoughts, feelings and actions in alignment in your everyday choices?  

(I talked about blind spots in my post last week)

As a leader you must have trust from your followers to get your biggest results.  Good character builds trust.  

Consider these 4 key dimensions of character (from Tim Irwin)

• Authenticity: Being open to share success and failures to balance the impact of your credibility and relatability.

• Self-management:

• Consistency in how you show up
• Choices that are best for everyone
• Credit others for their efforts

• Humility is saying a radical yes to the human condition. Author Robert Morneau. Balance of knowing our place and accepting our place.

• Courage – do what’s right in the face of adversity

The 3 key areas of character we can develop every day to grow trust and influence:

Embrace good values:  Be very clear on your own personal values

Practice self-leadership:  Doing the right thing, even when you don’t want to.

Value people:   Express value to another person, to take the focus off of self.

 

4. Transformation: Becoming an agent for positive change

Being able to redirect negative direct to positive change is the mark of a great leader.

Why is change hard for people:

• We can be awkward and self-conscious well doing new things
• We resist feeling like they are being change
• We tend to focus on what we have to give up
• We are all afraid of rejection on some level
• We can feel isolated and anxiety rises
• We overestimate the event of change and underestimate the journey to get there

Key strategies to be a positive change agent: (PLAN AHEAD - from John Maxwell)

Predetermine the change that is needed

Lay out your steps

Adjust your priorities

Notify key people

Allow time for acceptance

Head into action

Expect problems

Always point to the successes

Daily review your progress  

5. Convergence:  Effective problem solving

Convergence the process of effectively influencing our people and resources to problem solve.  Problem solving is the best way to show up as a leader and gain influence.

• Problems show us where others are
• Problems show us where we are
• Problems show us new opportunities

Keys to effectively solve problems:

• Be connected where the problem is
• Expect to always have problems as a leader
• Let go of the need to be right to do what is right
• There is always an answer
• Be a part of the solution, not creating more problems

6. Attitude:  Possibility and victory focused

The most effective leaders maintain an attitude of possibilities with a focus on past and future victories.

Here are some key attitudes to model as a leader:

• Everything can be figured out
• No helplessness
• Be clear and direct
• Gratitude, not whining
• Put yourself in others shoes
• Stay in your strengths and passions
• Exceed expectations
• Always seek possibility
• Fail forward: Test -> Fail – learn – improve - reenter

7. Serving People:         Heart to help others succeed

“If you help people get what they want, they will help you get what you want” – Zig Ziglar

Keys to empower others with servant leadership: 

• Do not rely on a title
• Believe in people and their potential
• See as much as you can from others perspectives
• Create a culture of encouragement
• Measure success by how you value others

8. Vision:   Seeing more before

• What you can see determines what you can be
• You see what you are prepared to see
• What you see is what you get (don’t believe, don’t receive)

9. Self-Discipline:  The price of reaching great potential

Makes the tough stuff possible!  (See my post - The Biggest key to Unlocking your potential)

Self-discipline leads to consistency and consistency compounds YOUR influence and results

Self-discipline is the price for unlocking your greatest potential.  Self-discipline is the ability you must have to control and motivate yourself, stay on track and do what is right.   Developing your self-discipline is the key to achieving your best desired results in life.

Self-discipline is defined as the correction or regulation of oneself for the sake of improvement.  It is the ability to control your feelings, overcome weaknesses and temptations to pursue and act on what we think is right and aligned with reaching our potential, priorities and goals.

 The world is captivated by bursts of charisma, genius, excitement, creativity and innovation but consistency provides so many long-term benefits:

• Consistency establishes your reputation. Anybody can be good once!
• Consistency is a prerequisite to excellence
• Consistency provides security to others
• Consistency reinforces your vision and values
• Consistency compounds accomplishments
• Consistency allows you to make your impact in the world

 10 Personal Growth:  The guarantee for better tomorrows

Growth is the guarantee that your best life and business are possible.  We become better, stronger and more skilled to reach our desired outcomes.

The keys to unlocking your growth:

• Commit to long term growth
• Develop your growth mindset
• Make daily growth a habit
• Embrace change
• Learn, unlearn, relearn

Growth must be planned for strategically.  Growth brings joy because we are not stuck, not in despair and allow hope.

The difference between those that lead well and those that don’t is SUCCESS

If you invest the time and energy into developing your leadership, you will unlock the influence and skills required to get better results at work, play and home.

On today's #tuesdaywithtammy.  I taught with more examples of how to own the truth of self-discipline and these 20 strategies for developing greater self-discipline.

You can watch the FULL 30 minute video teaching  by visiting our Unlocking YOUR Best Life Facebook page  

The video is titled  10 Keys to Unlocking Your Leadership 11/19/19

When YOU begin to implement any of these strategies to develop self-discipline that lasts, you unlock the results YOU desire most in life!

You are worth it!   

I hope to see you soon. 

Always with hugs, Tammy

JOIN ME every week for our FB LIVE chat on #tuesdaywithtammy at 12:00 noon cst on our Unlocking YOUR Best Life facebook page  

If you can’t join us LIVE, you can always catch a replay posted on the FB page or on YouTube later in the week.  Y’all know, I’m a people person. I really love when you show up with some input or just to listen.  Of course, I will check and respond to comments on the replays too!

 

 ps.  Did you know that A FREE 40 minute Life Strategy Session  with me could provide some keys for unlocking more of your best life?

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