Whether you’re blazing a brand new trail (new business, new initiative), or shifting trails (new position, new promotion); are you set up for success, or what your version of success looks like?
Here are four essentials that drive leader performance, and the performance of those around them, toward sought after outcomes. Take a moment to score how dialled in or brushed up you are with these four keys. What are you doing well? Where's your room for growth?
1. Vision.
A clarified vision sparks energy & motivation.
Where are you headed? Define, say aloud, visualize what the height of success looks and feels like. You have full permission to have an abstract version, or perhaps it’s crystal clear.
Imagining and giving life to the ideal, and determining mile markers along the way fuels motivation and energy, and shared with an outside resource (peer group, coach, mentor) sparks creativity and innovation.
Once you set off on your journey there will be challenges and mis-steps along the way – par for the course for all of us. Appreciate the lessons. Learn. They are gifts. Keep anchoring back to the purpose or vision. Perhaps the vision has shifted and a re-route is necessary.
2. Attributes.
When you have the ideal destination in mind, or at least an abstract version of it, what attributes are necessary to embody and exude in order to attain what you’re after?
Some traits will be familiar, while some may feel foreign which can be uncomfortable. Acknowledge the discomfort, think of them like growing pains. Will the growing pains help get you to where you want to go?
Take a moment and think about someone you admire for their success. How do they drive their performance, as well as others? What are their traits? What are they not like? The person can be fiction, non-fiction, know them, don’t know them.
Breathe life into those attributes and equip yourself. This will help drive your mindset. I like this description found in the dictionary under moxie; “when you’ve got the moxie, you need the clothes to match.”
3. Fine-Tune
Take time to reflect on your progress. Trust your instincts, while also be open to outside feedback and intuition – the positive and the room for growth kind. Feedback from a spouse or friend can sometimes be from the lens of “what you want to hear, or to keep you safe” VS. an outside qualified source can be more candid and straightforward. Ask business partners, colleagues, mentors, and coaches for feedback. Be open to sit in the hot seat. This has the potential to turn into a collaborative, innovative jam-session that becomes a shift in your story.
Also keep in mind that not all feedback will land. If that's the case, at least a distinction can be made and forward movement can feel more in-line.
Feedback I received years ago from my coach training supervisor still remains with me today. I use it to help me be the best I can, and still apply it today to both my professional & personal life.
4. Balance.
Discover and play with finding *your* right balance of hustle, play, rest – REPEAT.
By hustle it's not about burning the candle at both ends. Instead it's putting quality, focused energy into your work, and ensuring that you take care of the vessel (you) that’s putting forth the effort.
Take timeouts to play and rest. Appreciate your outcomes and wins; acknowledge your strengths, and learnings from both successes & mis-steps. Celebrate all of it along the way so the good times can keep rolling.
Being on all the time can feel heavy. Having someone to turn to – a safe corridor to tuck in for a moment – to be vulnerable and share concerns is valuable. A place to navigate the blocks or fears. You have full permission to not have it all together all time. You are human. And humans are designed to evolve.
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Taking these four keys into consideration - vision, attributes, fine-tune, balance - is helpful in taking the path of least resistance on your trail. They're like compounding ingredients; 1+1+1+1 = 8.
You’ve taken this leap into new. Bravo, applause to you! Now, how will you ensure your success?
My best goes to you..
.. K.