As the year comes to an end and a new year waits on the horizon, now is a great opportunity to reflect. Some people enjoy creating vision boards, new year’s resolutions, or yearly goals. Others spend time reflecting on the past and celebrating the many wins. As I reflect on the blog posts written, the books read, and a year of authentic leadership experiences, I’ve realized that I learned so much about leadership this year. Here are the top five lessons I learned about leadership:
- Be Bold and Courageous: A lot of people believe that they’ve reached the pinnacle of leadership until they spend time with a leader who is bold and courageous. In the many books, discussions, and interactions with leaders this year, I realized that great leaders rarely back down from challenges, they take bold action, and they’re courageous in their work. Use this new year as an opportunity to grow in being a courageous leader.
- Take Quick Action: The speed at which leaders make decisions and take action truly separates them. In all of my experiences with leadership this year, the best outcomes developed out of thoughtful decision making and then incredibly quick, relentless action. Numerous books provide clear anecdotes of leaders who took over an organization, made decisions quickly, and moved at a rapid pace to make change. Not everything works out perfectly, but so many great leaders move quickly in their work.
- Separate Business from Personal: A clear take away from my leadership work this year is that great leaders truly separate the business from the personal. The challenging conversations, tough decisions, and emotional meetings remain part of the business aspect of the job, and these leaders rarely take things personally. They’re able to separate the business aspect from their identity and personality. This doesn’t mean that decisions are easy or there’s no emotion; it simply means they compartmentalize nearly everything to more effectively do their jobs.
- Develop Confidence: A significant learning this year is that great leaders develop deep confidence in their work. The confidence is so strong and rooted that it’s okay if not all people like them or want to be friends with them. The leader’s job is to lead the organization for the betterment of everyone even if decisions or conversations lead some people to not like them. Their confidence develops by taking action, learning, and growing. The confidence of a great leader is powerful to see in action.
- Communicate and Collaborate: All of the leaders I’ve observed, worked with, read about, or listened to this year are incredible communicators and collaborators. Nothing happens without communicating the what, the why, and the how; once they communicate it, then they collaborate to reach the necessary results. The collaborative mindset leads to distributing leadership among people who can help create change. The decisions and change then don’t fall entirely on the leader and it’s a collective, organic experience.
Each year is an opportunity to read, listen, observe, and act in order to become a more highly-effective leader. While the foundation of leadership stays consistent, great leaders evolve with the job in order to better serve others. This year, I saw great leaders who were bold, courageous, actionable, and collaborative with others to better serve their communities.
What lessons around leadership did you learn this year?