Leading Ourselves (with a Clear Purpose) First

Leading with a clear purpose really does start with us, and coming to grips with how we’re wired can make an immediate difference in developing the kind of emotional intelligence that allows us to be so much more effective in how we do that. At the risk of being overly redundant (see what I did there?), I'll stress this one more time: the weight of leadership can be incredibly heavy. Dialing in the specific purpose that gets us out of bed each morning, then continuing to hone that as our roles and responsibilities grow over time, takes constant effort - and that’s before any of the crazy demands we’ll be expected to keep up with as a leader! Crafting a clear organizational purpose requires just as much from us, especially when that purpose needs to produce that ever-so-important profitability every business depends on to keep the lights on. And I have no doubt that I completely overwhelmed more than a few people working through this process with me when I listed all the things I believe a leader should learn about each of their team members in order to help them latch onto a clear purpose of them own.

Leadership is indeed hard! I’d go so far as to argue that few will ever be able to carry this kind of weight long term without having their own clear purpose that connects to a strong organizational purpose AND having a great team of people who they’ve helped do the same thing. That said, the emotional intelligence I just referenced is where it all comes together. Building that skill set allows us to lead ourselves well (toward a clear purpose) first, then effectively lead each team member who’s counting on us.

When it comes to self-awareness and self-management, I can point to an immediate increase in both personally when I completed a scientifically-validated DISC assessment (and no, all DISC assessments ARE NOT created equal) then was given a thorough understanding of exactly how I’m wired to operate on cruise control as well as under stress. That level of awareness helped me recognize how certain situations were more likely to impact my emotions, and how those emotions would indeed show up in my behavior and communication. Then, the task of managing those emotions became substantially more, well, manageable…

Let’s be honest here, no one will be as effective as they can be in leading others if they can’t recognize and manage their own emotions, behavior, and communication. And if we’re stuck dealing with that, I can’t imagine we’ll have much energy left to hone that clear purpose we need to help us push through the tough times. Further, there’s little chance of developing the kind of social awareness necessary to facilitate relationship management if we’re consumed with keeping our own train from wrecking.

For me, gaining that in depth personal understanding through the tools based on the DISC Model of Human Behavior (which Cindy and I have been licensed with for years and build into nearly everything we do today) was just what I needed to move intentionally toward being the leader I needed to be so others could count on me. And with that foundation, I was able to move more of my focus to sharing an organizational purpose with each team I’ve worked with, so we’ll dig into that more soon.