I Attended a Six Months Leadership Course And This is What I Learned

What I learned about myself and the Leader I want to be

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I recently finished a six months Leadership course. Before that, although I had worked for a number of years in the corporate world, I had spent little time developing my leadership skills.

During the first session, Leadership was defined as:

“being conscious and intentional about the impact we have on ourselves, our relationships and the social systems we are part of”.

This is often overlooked in the corporate world where people focus on executing without really thinking about how the actions affect themselves, the people around them with potential negative effects including low morale, bad project outcomes and high turnover.

I joined the course with a limited understanding of what leadership really meant and without a strategy to become a leader. Further, I was not aware of my values, my purpose and what really drives me.

In the six months of the course, I went through a transformative journey and I feel that now I have a much clearer understanding of the leader and the person I want to be. This article will walk you through my journey.

Meeting my Chimp

Part of the course focused on developing self-awareness and empathy and taking responsibility through self-management and social skills. In other words, it focused on developing self-leadership.

A groundbreaking model for self-awareness and self-management is the “Chimp Paradox” by Professor Peters.

The author, explains the struggles that take place within everyone’s mind when managing three different parts of our brain namely

• the Human (acting with logic and responding to evidence)
• the Chimp (acting impulsively and responding to emotions);
• and the computer (enabling automatic functions).

I had met my human and computer before, but I did not know there was a chimp guiding some of my actions. During a workshop, I was asked to draw and meet my chimp. The sketch drawing from the day is below:

Being aware of the existence of the chimp and its strength (5x faster and stronger than the human) has truly changed my life.

Depending on the situation or the issue I am facing, I am now able to recognise whether I am being driven by the human or the chimp.

To do so, I ask myself a critical question Professor Peter suggests namely:

“do I want this feeling?”

If I do not, I know that the chimp has taken control and I can use the mental models we learned in class (exercise and box) to allowing the human to take back control.

This awareness has positively impacted several areas in my life because I have learned to respond with logical thinking instead of emotions. These include the way I now deal with challenges during my work life as well as my personal relationships.

“Managing your impulsive, emotional Chimp as an adult will be one of the biggest factors determining how successful you are in life.” (Prof. Steve Peters)

Becoming a Leader: Leadership v Management

Leadership and management are two distinctive and complementary concepts but this distinction is often overlooked in organisations with a significant negative impact on their performance.

Often companies aim at creating “leaders-managers” without acknowledging that people cannot manage and lead at the same time.

The key difference is that managers focus on dealing with complexity by bringing order and consistency in large organisations. Conversely, leaders deal with change. In the modern world characterised by over competition and constant technology improvement, major changes are critical to survival.

During the course, I have discovered the principles that will guide me as a leader.

To help people improving and ultimately become leaders themselves

Clay Christensen in his book “How will you measure your life” notes that

“the only metrics that will truly matter to my life are the individuals whom I have been able to help, one by one, to become better people.”

Helping people to grow has always been very important to me. I loved to help other people and I have taken all the opportunities to mentor younger and less experienced colleagues.

Motivating and support people are critical components of the role of a Leader. Simon Sinek notes that:

“The greatest contribution of a leader is to make other leaders.”

This is a key principle that I want to follow.

Be part of something that is in line with my values

In his famous speech at the Stanford University Graduation ceremony, Steve Jobs said:

“The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”

To be a successful leader, it is important I have an undying passion for the work. Further, during the Leadership workshops, I have learned that to have a passion for work, this has to be in line with my purpose and my values or as defined by Simon Sinek, my “Why”.

I am now committed to pursuing only opportunities that are in line with my key values because this is the only way I will be able to become a successful leader.

“Because if the decisions you make about where you invest your blood, sweat, and tears are not consistent with the person you aspire to be, you’ll never become that person.” (Christensen, 2012).

I was sceptical at first but this course really changed my perspective on Leadership and on myself. If you want to know more about my experience feel free to contact me!