Originally Published on TryAscend.com and Savedbythecents.com By Ben Tejes
Being a leader isn’t just about taking up a new set of traits although that is obviously necessary. It is also about reflecting on your current habits that equipped you to be a leader. You will see that leaders tend to give up certain things to become a better leader. Let’s get right into the five surprising things that leaders give up to become a better leader.
1) Staying in a Comfort zone
While I worked at Google, I was intrigued by the level of comfort that surrounded me. I had recently moved from Africa where life was anything but comfortable. I remember there instances where the power would go out and my computer would run out of battery.
At the Google Mecca in Mountain View, I often felt that I was being paid to go to college with all the free food being catered and many other intriguing benefits. It was fun, but it was too comfortable. Comfort means that you may be tempted to push your leadership abilities less.
2) Chasing Indepedence
I tend to be a very confident person. It was this confidence that allowed me to fail so often and yet also get things done. Confidence though can lead you to be independent. Unfortunately, independence can be at odds with leadership. I realized that leadership involves teamwork and collaboration, and relying on others to get things done.
This results in delegation of workload towards a common goal. It is a great trait for a leader to embody as it brings teams together and gets things accomplished.
3) Living a Life of Inconsistency
Upon graduating from college many years ago, I found that my life was full of inconsistency. I remember screening calls because I wanted to be the one that would speak to people on my schedule. Graciously, my brother in law called me out of this trait and was kind enough to walk me through this change.
Leaders need to be consistent. If you say something, you must follow through and do it. Just like it is for parenting, when you are leading a group, you need to be a person of your word and walk in integrity. The result? People will trust you that you are a person of integrity and be more likely to graciously follow you.
4) Being reactive
It was only a few years ago that I realized that I was a reactive person. My manager had asked me many times to proactively provide problem areas to help fix. I thought I was proactive, but it wasn’t until something clicked that I started to become proactive.
Similarly, a leader needs to be proactive in every area of life. It’s imperative as a protection mechanism of your team to be able to predict as best as possible some of the challenges that may happen. I find that reactive people let life happen to them, but leaders try to predict what happens to proactively find and solve problems. This makes work much easier for anyone under this leadership.
Image source: Pixabay.