Leaders spend a lot of time trying to be productive or interact effectively with their staff without first building a foundation for success. They read vast quantities of material or try many leadership approaches only to find that nothing works quite well enough. That’s why there are so many leadership books.
Let’s try to simplify this whole leadership thing and figure out what creates amazing leaders. I’m going to let you in on this coveted secret, it’s…
Build up Your Self-Awareness So You Can Be a Good Person
Pretty simple isn’t it, but think of all the chaos that is created in countless workplaces because leaders try to ignore this vital idea. The reason leaders get tied up in knots and lose their way is because they forget to be good people. I’ll leave it to you to decide how you define good person but it includes some of the following behaviors:
- Give without expecting anything in return.
- Treat others kindly.
- Set an example you and others genuinely admire.
- Don’t do stuff that hurts others.
- Be proud of your behavior, don’t behave out of pride.
- Listen to the voice inside you that tells you you’re off course.
- Don’t compromise your ethics or justify negative behavior.
- Heal yourself and be happy.
- Behave with humility.
- Practice empathy.
Leaders who do these things will struggle far less with having to twist logic and reality to get results. When you’re a good person you do things that are observable by everyone around you. When people ask your employees they confirm you’re a great person.
You don’t have to be perfect and you’ll notice that it doesn’t say anywhere that you have to be obnoxious or preachy about doing these things. Just be someone who leads from a place of self-awareness, kindness, humility and balance. What will you do to increase your self-awareness and be a good person?
Cheers,
Guy
