Where true leadership really starts

Where true leadership really starts

Currently I am working with some clients who are extremely talented, passionate and with a great potential to succeed in their new leadership role. However, I see and feel that they are struggling within themselves – they feel overwhelmed and not sure how to jungle between different roles, which are usually extremely different from one another. Last but not least, I see their self confidence being questioned as the days pass by.

Let’s face it, we have all been there. We started a new job, in a leadership role or not, and in no time we felt the pressure, the heavy deadlines, all the new projects, the work travels, the wish to prove ourselves, all at once pressing on our shoulders. It is so easy in this quick paced society to feel overwhelmed, to have the feeling of not being able to jungle all the balls in our hands.

Unfortunately, the one thing we give up first, is ourselves. We stop exercising, stop eating healthy, spend less and less quality time with our families… We stop taking care of our mind, our soul and our body. Somehow it seems that everything else is more important than us.

It is in this moments, that the time spent on reflection, becomes critical. To understand what is important to us, to reflect on what we want to do, why we want to do it and how we will do it.

One thing we need to understand is, it is us being in control of ourselves and our own life. Values usually hold an organisation together. Do your values hold you together in times of personal storms and stress?

Stephen Covey once stated: “ Personal leadership is not a singular experience. It is, rather, the ongoing process of keeping your vision and values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with those most important things.”

True leadership starts within you. The question that arises in my mind is: “If you cannot manage yourself, should you manage someone else?”