Add Value, Increase Your Impact

How you show up as a leader is all dependent on how you view yourself as a leader. Your leadership identity is at the heart of why you do the things you do and in the manner that you do them. As such, understanding your identity as a leader is of utmost importance as it permeates your day to day conduct; ranging from the decisions you make, the way in which you communicate as well as the manner in which you engage with your team and other stakeholders.

Now, if your leadership identity is central to how people view you as a leader then surely it would be prudent of you to take time to understand what has influenced your current identity as a leader, how it affects your output and in which ways you can improve it so that you can be as impactful as possible. Sadly, a lot of leaders do not take the time to actively and continuously assess their leadership identity and as a result will often find themselves in cycles of frustrations, never fully figuring out why they are not seemingly adding the value that they wish they could add within their sphere(s) of influence.

Part of your mandate as a leader is to ensure that you are constantly growing and evolving in your role; this is done by learning from your mistakes, understanding and utilising your strengths, changing your mindset on how best to lead your team to get optimum results and most importantly, growing into a leader who adds value into the lives of the people you are leading.

“Leadership is not about an executive position or title. It is about connection and influence. At its highest, leadership is all about adding value to the world and blessing lives through the work you do”. — Robin Sharma

How do you add value to your team?

The first step is realising that it starts with self -reflection and self-awareness. The art of reflective leadership is about being present, aware, and attentive to our experiences throughout the day. Reflective leadership can help you grow and evolve as you examine your experiences to increase your self- awareness, improve your learning as well as grow as a leader. Dedicating time to think about your leadership identity and the decisions you have made thus far is a crucial part of leadership development.

It is important to remember that for you to lead others well, you first need to be able to lead yourself and for you to be able to lead yourself well; constant self reflection needs to take place so you know and understand why and how you show up for your team.

Good leaders take time to evaluate and think critically about their skills, strengths and areas of growth so that they can get clarity on whether they are adding value to their teams and progressing in the right direction.

Commit to having a growth mindset; set time aside each day/week to ask yourself tough questions on how you showed up and why you chose to show up in that particular manner.

1. After a meeting: What went well? What would you like to do differently in the future? What did you learn?

2. The week in review: What went well this week? What did you learn? If you had the chance to do something over, what would it be and why?

3. Highlights: What was your best leadership moment this week? How could you do more of this next week?

4. Lowlights: What didn’t go so well this week? What did you learn from it? How can you improve in the new week?

5. Your leadership: Did your conduct this week align with your values? If no, why not? How can you grow in your leadership identity?

FN

"In Him we live & breathe & have our being"