Your personal demons will either take you, or you will decide to take them. It’s up to you.
As I share in some of the interviews above, I’m so grateful God gave me the grace and insight to deal with my personal issues along the way.
Reinvention 4: The Life-Long Student
If you’re waiting for the day when you arrive as a leader, you’ll be waiting forever.
As a leader, you should never stop growing. Growing your character is more important than growing your skill set, and yet growing your skill set is also a must.
Many leaders would rather be teachers instead of students. That’s a critical mistake. The leaders who want to be teachers, not students, will never be teachers worth following.
The best teachers are the best students. So be a student.
Do whatever it takes to grow your skill set. Read books and blogs. Listen to podcasts. Go to conferences. Connect with leaders ahead of you. Learn whatever you can.
You’re never done. And if you really want to lead well, you’ll realize how amazing that realization actually is.
Reinvention 5: The Change Agent
In the first 5-10 years of your leadership, you will likely have introduced a lot of change. You moved out the old and brought in the new.
Which is where most leaders get stuck.
Many leaders have the courage to change what someone else introduced. Few have the courage to change what they introduced.
Effective leadership means changing what you introduced. It means looking the people you lead in the eye and saying “For a season, that was the best way to do things. The season’s changed, and we need a new approach.”
As I’ve shared before, leaders need to marry the mission, not the method.
In light of the massive cultural shift happening around us, leaders are going to have to get more and more comfortable with changing what they’ve already changed.
What Do You Think?
Those are 5 reinventions I see most effective leaders move through.
What are some reinventions you’ve had to go through personally? What have you seen in others?
