Enthusiasm Moves the World (Arthur Balfor)
If you are an individual seeking to make a positive difference in your environment, you have to admit that you have both climbed mountains and descended into deep valleys, sometimes questioning whether your attitude really does make a difference.
It does.
No matter what you may have been through in your life, in your career, you must realize that everything has served its purpose. Without these valuable experiences, you would be only half as knowledgeable, so instead of mourning and remaining paralyzed, transform your valuable lessons into powerful wisdom and use it not only to your personal advantage, but also to become a positive role model for others.
Your Enthusiasm will be Infectious, stimulating and attractive to others. They will love you for it. They will go for you, and with you. (Norman Vincent Peale)
However, make sure to keep a few important things in mind when creating a winning leadership mentality for yourself, including:
1. Successful leaders compete only against themselves, not against others. Most of all, successful leaders are gentle toward themselves, and toward others.
Life, and career, is no competition with people around you. Nor is it a competition with yourself, however ambitious and determined you are. Do not make your life a constant competition. Focus rather on practicing gentleness towards yourself and towards others, and make it a regular exercise to find a positive balance between challenging yourself, and letting yourself rest. It makes no sense to burn your candle at both ends. Real self-worth and passion comes from within, not from exhausting yourself either with too high personal expectations or trying to fulfill external expectations at all costs.
2. Successful Leaders do not give their personal power away to others.
If you are a good listener and an empathetic individual, you have to learn how to shield yourself against taking upon you the negative energies of others, or letting people manipulate you. Learn how to be assertive, but not aggressive, and how to be gentle in a sophisticated way, without taking upon you the energies of others, unless they truly are uplifting and positive. It is a positive trait in people to have two ears and one mouth, and to use them accordingly, but practice assertiveness in yourself and focus upon spreading your light instead of letting people and society around you to drain your energy. Find ways of getting rid of negativity quickly, either through surrounding yourself with positive, like-minded people, meditation, spending time in nature and so forth. If you notice that certain relationships always seem to bring up negativity, make sure to detach yourself as soon as possible and focus upon getting back on track as soon as possible.
Successful leaders live with the 3 E ́s: Empathy, Energy and Enthusiasm
3. Successful leaders stay in tune with their personal values.
Simple. Know your values and stick to them. Be assertive, confident, and focused. If you have forgotten about your real core values, make sure to find yourself back to them, and remind yourself about them each and every day. Find ways of reminding yourself, be it through a daily repetition of a mantra or simply waking up in the morning with a smiling soul, full of optimism, making sure that you will make the best of each and every day living according to your values, without harming yourself or others.
4. Successful leaders have a principle of staying true to themselves, but are also willing to help, and to support others.
Great leadership starts with knowing yourself. Even greater leadership allows for you to forget about serving your ego. All great leaders live with a meaning and purpose of serving a higher good, helping others, and serving others. A true, winning leadership mentality can shine only when it serves a higher purpose. Respect yourself and others by focusing upon being a role model of positive actions and optimism instead of finding fault either in yourself or in others. Remember also that your greatness requires the ability of being at peace with yourself. We all deserve leaders with healthy personal qualities so make sure to stay healthy and take care of yourself first.
5. Successful leaders develop their communication skills. Every day.
Every change-making leader is marked by outstanding communication skills. Excellent communication is demanding, especially if and when you work long hours and have great responsibilities. Therefore, make sure to learn how to save your energy through developing your communication, and negotiation skills. Powerful, respectful communication requires assertiveness, consciousness, an ability to tap into your personal source, and most of all, having the capability of truly listening to yourself, and to those you communicate with. Practice also on listen to what is left unsaid, and what you possibly can read between the lines. Online communication especially does include a number of challenges, which requires for you the capability of tuning extra carefully into what is being communicated. Successful negotiation, on the other hand, should always create a win-win situation.
Communication must be HOT. That is Honest, Open, and Two-Way (Dan Oswald)
6. Successful leaders are physically, mentally and spiritually in balance.
Physical, mental and spiritual balance requires continuous efforts, but to be truly successful in your career, and in your life, you have to be in shape. The more demanding your life is, the more you will have to work on maintaining this balance. What this includes, and signifies, is individual to each one of us. Listen to the signals your body is giving you, but also to your dreams, daydreams, thoughts and senses. You are the master of your own temple, so make sure to nurture it accordingly.
7. Successful leaders have trust, and are trustworthy.
When leaders tap into their higher consciousness, and operate on a level from the super-ego, rather than based upon fears stemming from the subconscious level, they open up to whole new levels of possibilities. Tapping into one’s intuition and therefore, having access to the abundance on the upper levels of consciousness creates completely different experiences, and offers increasingly prosperous outcomes in every action. To learn more about stepping into your intuition, I recommend reading The Intuitive Way: A Guide to Living from Inner Wisdom written by Penney Pierce.
From Powerless to “Leader” – Recognizing Victimizers & Victim mentality by Esperanza Montalvo:
Thank you for reading, listening, watching, liking and commenting. Thank you also for emancipating yourself in a positive way and becoming a positive role model, and a catalyst for improved communication and leadership.
Anne-Maria Yritys 