A coaching client suggested another chapter after reading “The Six Chapters of Every Leader’s Journey.”
The six chapters in the leader’s journey:
- Believe you can make a difference.
- Engage in leading.
- Learn leadership skills and behaviors.
- Respond to adversity and disappointment with openness and resolve.
- Humility.
- Kindness.
Sequence:
Belief (#1) is the beginning of leadership.
Learn about leadership (#3) AS you lead (#2). Learn to lead by leading. Theory and technique matter most when you’re engaged in leading.
Humility (#5) and kindness (#6) are learned in adversity (#4).
Hard-hearted leaders fail to learn from the fires of leadership. Unkind leaders have grown cold and bitter during disappointment and adversity.
Brilliant suggestion:
A coaching client wrote:
“I think people hear the word “leadership” in today’s society and there is an unwritten expectation that everyone jump on board and become a better leader. But rarely do they ever consider WHY they want to be one.”
She continued, “[When] chapter #4 – adversity – hits or some other crisis of faith or conscience … they lose their way because they never really understood the purpose of leadership as it pertains specifically to them.”
Purpose:
A reason to lead fuels desire to lead.
Purpose goes hand-in-hand with believing you can make a difference (#1).
You may not, at the beginning of your journey, fully appreciate the purpose that fuels your desire to lead. All you know is you want to make a difference.
- Purpose enables grit when adversity hits.
- Purpose guides in a world filled with options.
- Purpose protects when cutting corners seems attractive.
Don’t wait for perfect clarity about purpose. Go make a difference. Purpose grows clear AS you make a difference, not before.
- Listen to frustration. Purpose often lies behind irritation.
- What’s happening when your energy goes up?
- Keep asking yourself what matters. Explore why it matters.
What others chapters need to be added to The Six Chapters of the Leader’s Journey?
