Look In The Mirror

Measure yourself before you measure others.

To lead others, you must continually measure yourself—not overestimating your strengths, and not underestimating your weaknesses. To be an effective leader, you must be able to look humbly in the mirror at the start of each morning—to reflect, assess, and recommit to continual improvement. As the leader, you must ask yourself each day, “What can I do to make—and be—the change I want to see in the world?”

Undertaking the leadership journey requires self-awareness. It bears repeating: it’s not about you, but it begins with you: who you are as a person and the behaviors and attitudes that you model for others.

Here’s how you can be more effective leader by “looking in the mirror”:

• Leading others demands many capabilities, traits, experiences, and skills. In addition to the required expertise that got you to a leadership position, you need an array of other skills and attributes. Top of the list—self-awareness, a crucial, make-or-break trait that keeps you from overestimating your strengths and your underestimating weaknesses.
• More than anything, your passion must be seen and felt throughout the organization. People may not always agree with you; but the one thing that should never be in question is your passion for the organization and its purpose.
• As the leader, you must fully and totally become a steward of the organization. At the same time, though, the job doesn’t belong to you. Recognize that the endpoint of your leadership is not the endpoint of the organization. You are part of a leadership continuum.