Leadership Coaching: DIY

Leadership Coaching: DIY: If you don’t like how others are doing it then maybe it’s time to lead things yourself? I’m not advocating walking up and pushing your CEO aside. I’m not sure how well that would really go down in reality. What I am noticing is that if you consistently see better, more effective ways of doing things, that it might be important to acknowledge your leadership potential.

So, if it’s not polite to unseat your current FD or director of operations, how is it possible to capitalise on your leadership skills? Well, it might come down to taking a genuinely scary leap of faith. Why? It is nigh on impossible to totally rebrand yourself with any great potency in situ. If you came in at the bottom, however much you have grown, developed and worked your way up through the business or organisation, there will always be those who remember you as you are when you began. This perception others hold of you only serves to reinforce the lowest self-perception you have of yourself. This means it becomes hard to credit yourself with your progress and it’s easy to grind to a halt.

You have two choices here: you can take the slow route & bide your time until everyone who knew you way-back-when had left or retired. Or, you can take the quick route. Never ever underestimate the power of showing up at a new organisation with your brand new shiny CV. If you take the time to really harness all you have achieved since you joined your current company, the lessons you have learned and the strengths you have developed, then you actually get to redraw your own professional portrait. You can show up as ‘the new shiny you’ instead of the initiate that showed up a few years ago. 

Leadership Coaching: DIY

This is a risk. This is not a risk because it’s a tactic that might not succeed. It’s true, it might not be successful straight off, but, you already have a job so whilst your ego might be temporarily dented by a rejection, nobody will die and the mortgage will still get paid.

The risk is perceptional: if you were raised to be loyal and to do a job for life, then what might be the consequences of abandoning ship? How might you be viewed? What will people think? Will you be jumping into an unknown fire when you are just-about-comfortable in this known-frying-pan? The risks posed by taking this action are risks to your belief system. These beliefs can hold you stuck in a role that no longer serves you and which you now resent and thus cannot bring you best-self to any role.

If you gather all your resources, re-draw your Professional identity, you can get promoted way beyond your imagination. You could get to a place, in a new organisation, where you can actually implement your solutions, be of most use to your people and thrive in being your best professional self.
Acknowledging those beliefs holding back is important. Pushing right back at them and taking action will increase your confidence and enable you to step into your true potential. Sometimes you have to do it yourself, for yourself. Try it: I dare you.

You can find Rebecca here at the Daemon Career Coach