Your personal best counts irrespective of where you exercise your leadership – whether in your personal life, in your leadership as a parent, community leader,
business leader, social entrepreneur, political leader or global leader.
Being your personal best involves developing your personal and professional standards and to evaluate yourself against these standards. Your standards are a reflection of your authenticity (your true identity, your character and your attitude) and your competence (your expertise, skills, and your know-how).
Your authenticity creates the strong foundation for personal leadership, self-responsibility and freedom. It is the foundation on which to build your public leadership in the field of your calling.
When authenticity is absent and leaders get stuck, they tend to apply -- more steam and more competence -- to what got them into trouble in the first place: "If I try harder, I'll be successful," or "If we exert more control, we'll get the results we need."
Focusing on leadership competence before purpose and authenticity is like putting the cart before the horse and leads to unnecessary high stress levels, mediocre performance and a mediocre life. When you find yourself in such a situation, slow down, observe and reflect what is going on for you and around you.
As you live ‘Your Best Self’ everyday and evaluate your way of being and your performance against your standards, so will the people who are inspired by your leadership.
As you lift the bar for yourself, you lift the bar for others. As Dr Maxwell rightly points out, “What a leader does determines what everybody else is going to do. The people don’t pass the leader. An organization’s growth doesn’t outpace the leader’s progress.”
Have a fresh look at the purpose and intention of your leadership.
