If you are found guilty of deploying your leadership for a good cause; everything you say and do will be taken out of context, distorted and used against you!
That photo of you in the same room as someone smoking a joint, your distant membership of some obscure association, your failure to show up on time for an interview, your first love who left you for someone else ………. all of that, and more, will be used to prove that you are unstable, unreliable, untrustworthy and all the other “un’s” you can imagine.
To face up to this you will need to:
Stay in control of where you are going, without becoming dogmatic
Control your emotions, without becoming cold & distant
Focus on your objectives, without becoming blinkered
Achieve what you set out to achieve, without becoming stubborn
Take risks, without becoming reckless
Learn from your errors, without self-flagellation
Maintain self-confidence, without becoming arrogant
Show you are sure of your stuff, without becoming a know it all
Mental Toughness and Leadership go in hand; in fact, Mental Toughness could almost be “Leadership Attitude”, the attitude that gives you the self-confidence to take up a challenge and the self-control to see the challenge through to a successful completion
- If there is no challenge there is no need for leadership; leadership is about taking people on a journey to somewhere that is significantly different from today.
- Leadership is not just about taking on challenges, it also about achieving them, being truly committed to the vision.
- Leaders need to be in control of themselves (aware of their dark side) and they need to know where they are going – they are not going somewhere by chance; they have made a conscious decision.
- Having confidence in oneself (as well as in others) is essential in developing the relationships to deal with difficult people.
Being mentally tough gives you an “edge” in all those difficult situations you are going to find yourself in; all those situations where you thought your leadership would be welcomed, only to find yourself being belittled, criticised, blocked and generally put-down. It will give you the edge to maintain dialogue and not get dragged down into diatribe.
If you are interested in developing your (or your teams) Mental Toughness, do not hesitate to contact me at boblarcher@boblarcher.com
I help people to develop their interpersonal skills, usually within a leadership or teamwork context. If you are looking to develop your leadership, I might be able to help. I’ve been doing this for 35 years; roughly three and half thousand days of seminars, workshops, conferences, coaching, offsites, etc. – put back-to-back that makes almost ten “full” years.