Dot Connector

Leadership is not a title. Leadership is a choice. You earn respect. You earn experience. But you choose to be a leader.Whether you are an executive, middle manager, project manager, or intern, you choose to be a leader. And far too often, those who could be leaders choose not to.

How do you become a leader? Here are my top 3 leadership development tips.

1. Make decisions. Decide to be happy. Decide to be excited about what you do. Decide that you want to achieve your Top 3 todos for today. Decide that you will make a conscious effort to help those you work with to grow. Decide to speak up to your CEO in a meeting. You get the idea! Leaders are people who are not afraid to make decisions. Do you find yourself actually making decisions, or continuously seeking answers and approval? If it’s the latter, then stop! Look objectively at what you are trying to do, and make decisions for yourself. Just ask yourself: “is this decision the best thing I can do right now?” If it is, decide and do it.
2. Trust Your Instincts. This is intimately tied into #1 – Make Decisions, since without instincts, it’s very hard to make decisions! Instincts are what guide you through your thought process when analyzing any situation. Far too often, people “second-guess” their “gut instincts.” Don’t do this! All of your career, you are continuously fine-tuning your gut instincts. No report, no research, no opinion can make a decision. Those things can only help you to refine your gut instincts. Guess what? Start trusting your instincts, and a magical thing will happen: they’ll get better and better over time! You’ll be amazed at where it can take you.
3. Allow Yourself and Your Team (if you have one) to Fail. How do you learn a foreign language? You screw it up until you get it right! Secret: the “best” people you will ever work with were not born that way. They’ve made BIG mistakes OFTEN. Yet, I’ve seen it happen time and time again: by trying to make things “perfect” a person, or an entire team, will inevitably either miss an opportunity or limit personal growth. I know this is scary stuff, but it’s key to your leadership development. Take the training wheels off yourself and your team. Jump out of the nest and fly! It’s the only way you’ll grow as a leader.

I hope you keep these leadership development tips in mind throughout your day, when you are faced with times where you can use all 3 of them.

Starting right now, decide to be a leader!

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