To Love Leading is not some woo woo leadership concept. It’s based on science, evidence and enables leaders and their teams to perform at their best, in a sustained way (this last part, being the key). It’s about performance and results. 

Think about the people in your life, or public figures, that are thriving.  A simple observation, they love what they do. My Dad was one. He ran a business in China for 25 years and when he’d talk about the challenges and difficulties he faced, instead of looking downbeat and downtrodden, he had the energy and enthusiasm of a 5 year-old child. He genuinely Loved Leading. 

And in sports I love like trail running, Coutrney Dewalter (the GOAT) and Blandine l’Hirondel clearly get huge amounts of joy from their running despite the training and pressure. Tadje Pogocar, one of the best cyclists ever, just loves riding his bike. The results are there for all to see. 

I’m sure you can think of people too. Think of three people you know or admire who are thriving. What’s the common denominator?

Coming back to you. Do you love what you do? Did you in the past but no longer? Have you ever? 

If you want that feeling of being excited going to work to collaborate with an exceptional team and have real, growing and sustainable impact, performance and results, you can get there. I’ve seen it repeatedly with the CEOs, founders and senior executives that I work with. 

The starting points are varied and include: feeling that something is off, their teams aren’t performing (or behaving) the way they want, being overwhelmed, they’re fed-up with their team/company, results are poor, they’ve lost motivation and meaning or they’re close to or in burnout. These are just a few examples. The common outcome is that we’ve turned this around.

Ultimately, and while this might seem counterintuitive, you need to put yourself first to serve others.

And it all starts with self-awareness. 

Now, we all think we’re self-aware but here’s what the evidence tells us. Only 15% of people are really self-aware[i]. And there is less than a 30% correlation between people’s actual and self-perceived competence.[ii] We’re clearly not as self-aware as we first thought. The same research shows that a leader’s lack of self-awareness negatively impacts decision making, collaboration, and conflict management.

A wake-up call. I know. I’ve been there too. But let’s flip this on its head. What an incredible opportunity to further develop ourselves as leaders. To have even more impact than we’re already having, however accomplished and experienced we are.

This is exciting. 

What do we really mean when we talk about self-awareness?

We think of self-awareness as being conscious of how we come across to others, being aware of our behaviours, our feelings, how we react to them. But it goes so much deeper. 

Self-awareness is about knowing yourself so well that you know what you need as [insert your name here] to perform at your best, in a sustained way, and be the best leader you can be. For me, the three biggest changes were (1) understanding how to keep my energy levels high regardless of what was going on, (2) identifying where and how I had the most impact and (3) adjusting my role so that I could focus on those areas of impact. 

As we’re all unique and have different leadership styles, experiences and needs, this looks different for everyone.  

There is no leadership cookie-cutter to make you the most “effective” leader. 

This is about you and only you. Capitalising on your unique strengths and experience.

When you do this, you lead in alignment with your style, strengths and values. 

Leadership energises you instead of drains you. You’re intentional as opposed to reacting all the time. You’re not being distracted, you’re controlling what you can control and spending time on the things that matter and generate results. You’re not working more but you are having more impact.

Not only will your performance and results improve but so will those of your teams and company.

Sounds amazing, doesn’t it?

In other words, as leaders, we can thrive despite the constant pressure for results, the fire-fighting and the chaos. And here, thriving means performing at our best, sustainably.

Coming back to self-awareness, it not only enables us to have more impact individually, it also determines the type of leaders and team-members we need around us to have the most impactful leadership team. 

Leaders are contagious. If we’re thriving, our teams are thriving, our companies are thriving.  We love leading, this is the ultimate goal.

[i] Tasha Eurich (2018), What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It), Harvard Business Review.

[ii] Erich C. Dierdorff and Robert S. Rubin (2015), Research: We’re Not Very Self-Aware, Especially at Work. Harvard Business Review.