You may be wrestling with being overwhelmed, balancing your personal and professional life, and at the same time, your vision is expanding. You may be experiencing a desire to cut back, and move forward at the same time. Relax. You are not alone in your struggle. You are experiencing “LADDERShifts.” I describe these as the “growing pains” a leader faces when moving forward.
I have observed eight areas of struggle growing leaders have in common. Identifying, exploring and confronting these areas will forewarn thus forearm you for the growth ahead.
NEW PEOPLE
- No leader is immune to people issues—they come with the territory.
- The people who got you to where you are now may not be the ones who take you where you need to go.
- Proper People Placement Prevents Problems.
- If you don’t grow—you gotta go.
- When you don’t know how to disengage from turkeys and engage with eagles it causes pain.
- Agreement, is not always positive and disagreement is not always negative; people can disagree with us and still add value.
- Yesterday’s solutions have become today’s problems.
- Four people success factors—Character—Competency—Chemistry—Capacity.
NEW PAINS
- When you’re the CEO, you’re never off.
- No growth without change—No change without loss—No loss without pain. These are growth pains.
- You will grow only to the threshold of your pain.
- Your pain capacity defines your leadership capacity.
- The pressure of always making the right decisions with higher stakes is extremely painful.
- Great leaders may not share the same level of preparation or talent, but they all live with pain—personal, internal, organizational, external—pains.
- Things don’t often turn out as expected—the pain of disappointment and perceived failure. The distance between expectation and reality brings disappointing pain.
EXPECTATION<————————-DISAPPOINTMENT & PAIN————————>REALITY
NEW PLACES
- We have a landscape mentality in a seascape world. Landscapes are stationary over extended periods of time. Seascapes—the world we live and function in—is unpredictable and constantly churning, taking us to new places.
- Investing resources in where you are going is a choice.
- Be ready to give up the familiar and certain for the unfamiliar and uncertain.
- Develop a level of comfort with ambiguity.
- Learn to dance in the moment.
- Be flexible in your direction and adjust to shifting lanes.
- Develop a clear vision of your destination; disengage with people and activities not headed in the same direction and connect with people who are already at your desired destination.
NEW PERSPECTIVES
- “He not busy being born is busy dying.”—Bob Dylan
- New perspective comes from forcing ourselves to think in new ways.
- You cannot be strong and smart in every area. Become transdependent.
- Transdependence keeps me rooted to my past, gives me context for my present, and offers me perspective for my future.
- Leaders with huge egos are detrimental to their organizations.
- Try not to be the smartest person in the room all the time by getting comfortable with people who know more than you.
- Healthy leaders see other’s ideas as gifts not threats. They’re always asking others, “What do you think?”
- “In times of change learners will inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”—Eric Hoffer
NEW PRIORITIES
- “There is surely nothing quite as useless as doing something with great efficiency what should not be done at all.”—Peter Drucker
- Gain strength from doing the essential few that define you.
- Make your vision the source of your priorities.
- Every decision and every business activity is headed for obsolescence the minute it begins.
- Communicate your vision by keeping it simple, memorable, and stable with patience.
- Don’t prioritize your schedule, rather, schedule your priorities.
NEW PASSIONS
- Dreams that were at one time compelling are now losing their intensity.
- Gifted leaders become bored and restless in an operating environment.
- Visionary leaders need to slow down and listen to themselves.
- Uncovering new passions will reignite the fire within you.
- “The jump is so frightening between where I am and where I could be…Because of all I may become, I will close my eyes and leap!”—Mary Ann Radmacher
NEW PREPARATIONS
- Forewarned is forearmed. To be prepared is half the victory.
- We must realize we control very little.
- Opportunities come to those who are prepared.
- The opportunity of a lifetime must be utilized in the lifetime of the opportunity.
- Opportunities are never postponed—they’re lost forever.
- When you’re 100% sure, you’re too late.
- Preparation + Opportunity = Success
NEW POSSIBILITIES
- “The future is not the result of choices among alternative paths offered in the present. It is a place created—created first in the mind and the will; created next in activity.”—Walt Disney
- What makes your destiny so compelling? It’s not just any future—it’s your future.
- Alter your attitude and ask:
“What is it about me that I need to change?”
“What are the possibilities if I had a team I could trust?”
“What about me that is holding the organization back?”
- Transform your thinking and ask:
“How can I become a life-long learner?”
“Since knowledge is currency and power do I share it willingly?”
“Am I constantly futuring?”
- Make an uncommon commitment to scanning the horizon, forecasting trends and exploring new lands.
- New possibilities can emerge from any situation.