Effective leader l Part 1 l Any individual

Effective leader l Part 1 l Any individual

Fable

Two Travellers, walking in the noonday sun, sought the shade of a wide spreading tree to rest. As they lay looking up among the pleasant leaves, they saw that it was a Plane Tree.

 “How useless is the Plane!” said one of them. “It bears no fruit whatsoever, and only serves to litter the ground with leaves.”

 “Ungrateful creatures!” said a voice from the Plane Tree. “You lie here in my cooling shade, and yet you say I am useless! Thus ungratefully, O Jupiter, do men receive their blessings!”

Topic Review

 The ability to perform one’s role competently and then possess the capacity to assist others with their role is a sign of leadership potential. This statement implies a need for us to first aim to know and become comfortable with ourselves before we can appropriately influence others.

Knowing ourselves as we ought to helps us in the following three ways:

• We identify our strengths and maximise those to help us capitalise on opportunities within our journey.
• We discover our work-ons, not weaknesses, to help us avoid threats linked to those work-ons.
• We realise that we have ‘blind spots’. These are work-ons that we may not be aware of, with which others can assist us to manage them more effectively.

It is from this degree of desired self-awareness that we can make use of our flair and flaws as well as our character and chaos to influence the lives of those around us.

We will have character and personality flaws, we will however, together, fight with everything in us to work through those flaws while dealing kindly and not harshly with ourselves. The world is tough enough without us being too hard on ourselves as well.

Finally, we are called to continuous growth because we are nowhere near to the finished product; this keeps us humble, makes us relatable and human.

Quotes

“Heal yourself first before you heal others.” – African proverb

“One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.” – Michelle Obama

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” – Aristotle, famous Greek philosopher (384–322 BC)

“Self-awareness gives you the capacity to learn from your mistakes as well as your successes. It enables you to keep growing” – Lawrence Bossidy, American author and retired businessman

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power” – Laozi, ancient Chinese philosopher and writer

Discussion – this is where the transformation occurs. Putting it all into action.

• Which quote above are you likely to take with you and why?
• Have you had a personality assessment or anything related to it? If not, please consider taking one.
• What (in your view) are your top 3 strengths and how can you maximise those?
• Are you aware of your work ons? What are you doing about those?
• Ask someone you trust to help you identify your blind spots. Could they help point them out to you as you journey together?

Additional resources:

Please click on the ‘Material’ tab for additional clips related to this topic:

• An example of a brain profile ‘preferences’ assessment.
• An SWOT analysis explanation which can be used as a framework for you to conduct your personal SWOT analysis. 

Reflection, expression & personal application – jot down your thoughts, takeaways and action plans…