3 Thoughts Every Leader Must Master
If you want to be a good manager for you team, you must first learn to be a good manager of yourself. No matter what you think you can do through force of will, you can’t bring your best if you don’t put yourself in a position to be the healthiest version of you.
It’s simple: healthy leaders impart healthy leadership, unhealthy leaders impart unhealthy leadership. If you cannot effectively manage your thoughts and feelings about your current role, the people you lead, and your place within the wider organization, then you will find yourself becoming your own worst enemy. Below are 3 common thoughts that often impair leadership potential. If you can learn to mitigate their influence and erase them from your mind you will become a much better leader to your people and find greater satisfaction in the way you lead.
1.) “Grass is Greener” Thoughts
How many of you have been on LinkedIn or have traded seed planting emails to someone you think may have a better opportunity for you? The fact is that the best way to receive the best opportunities is to be the best you can be in your current role. Opportunities come from success. Success comes from hard work, focus, and buy-in. When you are looking for something else your energy, focus, and contribution diminishes drastically. Divert your greener dreaming into giving yourself to what you are paid to do and you’ll find that the right doors will open for you down the road.
2.) “I Deserve…” Thoughts
Ok, you deserve more than you are getting. Does that make you feel better? The reality of life is that none of us will fully receive the honor, respect, or compensation that our minds tell us we deserve. The “I deserve” thought is usually a sign that we are having internal, self-indulgent conversations with ourselves rather than focusing on giving to others. If you make the switch to outward giving instead of internal self-inflation you will be surprised by the amount of respect that will follow. Once you decide to focus on others more than yourself, opportunity and honor are around the corner. In the end, the old proverb “humility before honor” rings true.
3.) “No one gets me” Thoughts
These thoughts implant a victim mentality that brings nothing but self-pity and inhibited action. Unfortunately, if no one gets you it’s usually because you have either indulged a degree of self-absorption that can’t relate to others or you haven’t taken the time to learn how to communicate in the language others speak. Doing this isolates you in situations that are essentially designed for you to fail so that you can say, “no one gets me.” Self-conversations become dangerous when you begin talking in third-person victim language because words have the power to shape your mentality, and those words create negative atmospheres both internally and externally. The negative internal environment inhibits your productivity, happiness, and effectiveness, while the external atmosphere pushes others away and limits your ability to influence and contribute. The easiest way to overcome this tendnecy is to shift the focus of your conversations from internal to external — to focus your energy on something more important than your obsession with security, status, or some other tendency of self-preservation.
Eliminating Unhealthy Thoughts
I know such discussions may sound blunt, but all of these lessons have come from first hand experience as both the perpetrator and recipient of leadership controlled by these thoughts. Often, the hardest part to accept is that tendencies of this nature never lead to the place of promised solace you hope for, but rather a morbid view of life that weakens your leadership capacity. Rid yourself of these tendencies and watch your influence increase exponentially as you accumulate the respect, maturity, and people skills that come from giving yourself away.
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