The leader you want to be

What kind of leader am I? More importantly, what kind of leader do I want to be? 

These are the questions that I grapple with, resulting in many navel gazing moments.  And now more than ever, I feel comfortable in my own skin, with my own style and with a greater understanding of my own purpose. This is my main takeaway from the International Marketing Leaders Programme. 

This course touched on many of the issues which today’s leaders’ face – leadership authenticity, self and organisational purpose, resilience, presence and finally those self-limiting beliefs that stop many of us from progressing to our potential. The combination of lectures by senior leaders, along with one-to-one coaching sessions, team exercises with fellow participants make this a truly special and engaging programme.   

The senior leaders selected to share their personal stories each came with their own unique background and style and in many instances, with their own take on what makes a “great leader” and this gave me great comfort to accept that there isn’t one way that is better than the other.  Equally importantly, in my course, we had an extremely diverse group of individuals presenting very different insights but all very open to share their personal challenges and reflections.

Here are five points which I have taken out from IMLP which I am finding invaluable in my journey as a leader:

1. Be authentic. Keep your leadership style grounded on your values and beliefs. Don’t try to change who you are, you may just come across as being disingenuous or fake.

2. Set the direction. Make sure you formally structure time in the week for reflection to be more future-focused.  Don’t get bogged down by the minutiae of the day to day.  It’s the role of the leader to set the direction for the team and once that direction is set - repeat, repeat, repeat

3. Focus on strengths. Draw on your strengths and do not obsess about your areas of development.  You need to be aware of the areas where you may have gaps or areas where you may not be naturally strong but instead of putting all your energies into trying to turn those areas as strengths, close the gaps as much as possible and focus on the areas which you are great at!

4. Keep putting yourself out there. Don’t stop learning and make sure you put yourself in situations where you am exposed to new thinking, new opportunities and new connections

5. And finally, drop the ego! One of the key roles of a leader is to help the team be at their best. You to set the right and tone energy for the team, remove blockers and empower the team to success (and sometimes fail)

Was this another training course where you get back into the office and everything is business as usual? I can happily say “NO”. It’s now been a month or so after the course and I am still actively applying the techniques and practical tools shared to help accelerate my performance.  I am much more proactive with engaging with the wider external marketing community taking my experiences out and bring external thinking into the organisation.  And finally, but most importantly, take the principles to develop my own team as they go through their own journeys.