What: We all know the importance of doing things that will set us up for personal success. Eating healthy, good sleep, fostering positive relationships, taking risks - all these are examples of actions we can take to make us better personally. In episode 19, we took that same idea and applied it to leadership, specifically looking at actions and mentalities that leaders should take to set their team up for success.  In this episode, we continue that theme, but focus on personal actions and habits that will make you a successful leader. These actions focus on traits that will allow you to lead more effectively, and keep your mentality strong through the ups and downs of a leadership journey.

Why: Leadership is hard, demanding, and confusing. It is not something that just naturally happens, it’s not magic, but rather groomed and perfected over time. If you want to become a more effective leader, there are certain habits and actions you need to incorporate into your daily life to grow and develop. It’s no different than an athlete who must eat healthy, train, and sleep to be successful.

The Breakdown:

1. 
   
2. 
   

   Always be learning. The current Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, is renowned for his dedication to learning, even at one point having a personal library of over 7,000 books! His dedication to learning has made him the leading expert in the art of warfare, and his model of constant learning is shared among many of the top CEOs and leaders in our world today. Learning need not be limited reading; podcasts, online courses, YouTube videos, conferences, and many other sources exist today to grow your understanding, provide alternative perspectives, and help you learn from the mistakes of others.

   
   
   
3. 
   

   Balance. “Work-life balance” is a hot buzzword these days, and for good reason. Unfortunately, the term is often misunderstood and therefore misapplied. Our lives will never have a perfect split of work and personal time. A leader must know how to prepare for and execute in times where the mission objectives take priority, but then also be able to quickly adapt and not maintain an imbalanced mindset. The same is true in the opposite direction as well. A leader who knows how to balance their personal life and work well is much more suited to creating a winning culture with their team.

   
   
   
4. 
   

   Physical Fitness. Multitudes of scientific studies confirm the many benefits of routine physical activity in a person’s life. Lowering stress, maintaining healthy weight, controlling hormones, and the list goes on. Leaders must make decisions and think clearly in all seasons of life, but that can only be done when you are physically rested and performing well. Routine physical fitness (not necessarily running a marathon or being a bodybuilder) will help you stay steady in stressful situations, increase your self esteem, and allow you to better process your thoughts.

   
   
   
5. 
   

   Under-reacting. The movies often portray leaders as people who overreact, throw things, yell and scream when something bad happens. But ask yourself - how does that reaction help you solve a problem? Here’s the answer - it doesn’t, and in fact, causes much more harm because you lose sight of what your objective is (“tunnel vision”) and also don’t promote an environment where your team can come to you with issues (which also means they will not want to take risks and attempt things they might fail at). Instead, leaders should “under-react” to a situation, focusing instead on being almost too calm, not saying anything, and doing much more listening than talking/acting.

   
   
   
6. 
   

   Ownership. The largest thing that stymies big ideas from becoming reality is people not taking aggressive action to make things happen. When faced with a challenge or something that goes wrong in our lives, most of us ignore it. We distract ourselves with something else. We hope that someone else will solve it, or that the situation will magically change. If you want to grow as a leader, start taking ownership of the challenges in your life by acknowledging problems exist, adopting the mindset that you are responsible for it, and more importantly, you are the only one who can make it better. Not anyone or anything else - it’s you.

   
   
   

Tie-Up: Each one of these actions are things you can do personally that will help you become a better leader. While they do not directly correlate to a leadership action, they are foundational habits that will help you move your team to a future position. When you practice these habits (learning, fitness, balance, under-reacting, dreaming), you will build positive characteristics that naturally flow into you being a great leader who is knowledgeable, durable, thinks clearly, dedicated to the success of both the mission and people, and also has a clear understanding of where they want to go.

Application:

1. 
   
2. 
   

   Find your learning plugins. Find something you want to learn about and attack it.  Perhaps that is a book you want to read, educational podcast, or new training. What are you actively trying to learn right now?

   
   
   
3. 
   

   Physical activity. Dedicate at least 3 days a week to 30 minute activities. Doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive. Just something to elevate your heart rate for a prolonged period of time.

   
   
   
4. 
   

   Find 2 weak areas in your life and develop your “ownership plan” to turn them around. Your ownership plan will consist of the actions that YOU will take to make things better. It usually starts with acknowledging the problem and publicly claiming that you are responsible for the situation not being so great. But right after that is an action statement that says “here is what I am doing to fix it”. Your next days or weeks must be spent doing what you just said you would do.