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This article continues to uncover the 21 qualities showcased in my new book, Healing Leadership: How to Lead, Love, and Thrive in Business and Life.
One of my superpowers is being proactive. I love planning and taking in the big picture perspective.
Our job as leaders is to look around the corners, see what's coming, prepare our teams, and prepare ourselves mentally for what's going to happen. So being a visionary goes hand in hand with being a proactive leader.
Sometimes that means planning physically by getting a particular infrastructure in place that will help us handle the new solution or the problem that we know we're going to have in a couple of months. in a year from now, or so on.
Other times, it looks like being proactive about how we show up, behave, and impact others.
In preparation to write Healing Leadership, during 41 interviews with industry leaders and experts, we uncovered the 21 unique qualities we've been showcasing in our blog.
These qualities will support you to increase your confidence, remove self-doubt, develop a growth mindset to advance as a leader, and help your team deliver on the organization's objectives.
Previous blogs capture the first 18 qualities (available from our blog). This article focuses on leadership quality #19: A healing and empowering leader is proactive.
How are you being proactive right now in your role?
Are you constantly feeling like you're behind or falling behind, or do you see yourself looking forward to what's happening next month, 12 months from now, or even further?
Let's look ahead. Ask yourself and include your team in this exercise:
Twelve months from now, if we are wildly successful, what happened? What have we accomplished?
Please consider the impact you've had on the people, systems, and processes you influence throughout the lifecycle of your business activities.
In many cases, this question allows you and your team to set tangible goals, audacious goals, and be innovative while creating guard rails to keep the team focused on what's most important.
Similarly, as I often say, you can apply this concept in your personal life. Ask yourself:
Twelve months from now, if my relationships are going wildly successfully, what happened? How am I showing up?
What is happening with my interactions with loved ones and extended family?
What connections did I create that weren't there before?
Who am I treating with more patience and compassion?
Who needs more attention from me?
As a proactive, conscious leader, there are many possibilities and ways of being which can transform your leadership and drastically improve the quality of your life and those you care for.
By living your life with intention, you create the life and career you want.
Everyone on the journey to self-development knows that you get to a point where you have had enough pain in your life.
You may feel like you're burning the candle on both ends or stuck on a treadmill, constantly running and getting nowhere.
When you get to the point where you say "enough is enough!" that's when you begin to ask and decide, "What can I control in my life? What can I do personally to improve the quality of my life?
While on a hike with a dear friend, she mentioned that whenever she complains to her husband, he says to her, "Do something to help yourself." I love that!
What can you do to help yourself based on your current career and personal life situation?
It's sometimes so much easier to point the finger and blame other people for what we are currently experiencing. Everyone's doing their thing.
You and I have a few things that we can control.
You can control your beliefs.
If you believe things are going downhill and they will never recover, guess what? You are absolutely right. The opposite can be true too.
The question is, "What beliefs are you giving the most weight to?" Those are the ones driving your actions, behaviors, and attitudes.
You can control your thoughts.
What do you focus on? Do you focus on only problems, or do you also appreciate what's working and focus on solutions? Both are valid. How you feel is directly correlated with where you direct your energy and focus. Be proactive and choose wisely.
You can also control the words you say.
What words are you using? If you find yourself using words that have a negative charge, that's what you're putting out into the universe. Therefore, that's what you're going to receive, and that's how you're going to feel.
You can control your thoughts.
As yourself, "What am I thinking?" Notice how you feel after each thought. Every thought will lead you to emotion. That emotion is a hundred percent correlated to your thoughts. Ever listen to a song that brings back very acute feelings about what you were doing when you heard that song at one point in your life?
Let me re-iterate...You can control your thoughts. The minute you catch yourself focusing on a poor quality thought, you have the choice to notice it, let it go, and switch it around.
You can control your behavior.
For example, you can control whether to show up on time or repeatedly snooze, miss the gym, or be late for work.
You control how you support your teammates and interact with your manager, your questions in a meeting, and how you ask them.
How can we do all this? The #1 step is self-awareness.
Many of us believe we're entirely out of control in our lives. But indeed, there are so many aspects of our lives that we can direct and take our remote control back.
When we let external factors rock us internally, we're giving our remote control to someone/something outside of us. We may tend to go into a victim mentality, and nothing feels more disempowering from this place.
What does it take for us to be more empowered and feel more empowered to live our lives and focus on what we can control?
To keep your "remote control" and feel empowered, take stock of what triggers you and zoom out. Do your personal development work, and look at the situation from different angles.
What does taking stock look like? Ask yourself...
How am I doing? Is this the track that I want to be on? And if it's not, you always have a choice.
You may not have all the funds you think you need. You may feel you don't have the time you need to do some of these things. But if you look back at history at your past, you have always done something that you wanted to do when you make it a priority.
So if you feel out of control, if you're not being proactive, to bring you back to the quality of being proactive as a leader, stop, take a beat, and consider:
What is a high priority for me?
What will I focus on during the next 12 months in this aspect of my life?
You will see your life will transform.
Easier said than done? If you need support, you can reach us at www.callwithginny.com to set up a complimentary strategy session and explore how our programs can help you and your leaders gain these skills and get out of survival mode and into thriving mode. Your potential depends on it. If not now, when?
Live with purpose, live with joy!
Coach Ginny 💕
Whenever you're ready, we want to serve you with what you need support the most! Here are some ways in which we can do this together: #1 - Increase your confidence and leadership skills to overcome the limitations holding you back and magnify your superpowers: Learn the #1 success secret to becoming the highly impactful, influential leader you are meant to be without sacrificing your well-being. We start soon and only a few spots remain. Get the details here. Email info@executivebound.com with any questions: www.flmprogram.com. #2 - Learn how to prepare to get the job you want with our Personal Branding Masterclass: Our virtual course will show you how to stand out in the job market, confidently. Create a magnetic resume and LinkedIn profile, grow your professional network, and articulate your value, especially during interviews. Get the details here: www.personalbrandingmasterclass.com. #3 - Get out of survival mode and advance your career when you create your 12-month action map in our Visionary Leaders Circle monthly program: Acquire the tools, strategies, and structure to navigate the challenges of a corporate environment, advance steadily, and develop leadership competencies, virtually, with other leaders on the same journey and your own leadership coach. Find out more and register here: www.visionaryleaderscircle.com #4 - Coach with us, virtually, privately, one-on-one: Join one of our private coaching programs, designed to address your specific challenges and goals, flexible to your busy schedule. Our clients earn promotions, higher pay, transition into new roles they love, and enjoy a higher level of financial, physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. They "do the work" and see the results! 100% virtual, get started with a complimentary session here: www.executivebound.com/get-started #5 - Read our new book: Healing Leadership: How to Lead, Love, and Thrive in Business and Life. Healing Leadership will transform the way you view your role as a leader, how you lead yourself and contribute to others. It includes 41 industry experts who also share their years of experience and insights with you. Visit www.healigleadership.com to order to order your copy today. #6 - Read our book, Fearless Women at Work: Five Powerful Strategies to Thrive in Your Career and Life! This book’s sole purpose is to ignite your personal power to pursue the life of your dreams by applying five practical strategies in a unique process named C.A.R.E.S. Get your copy and BONUS Book Club Guide companion today at www.executivebound.com/book. #7 - Subscribe to our Podcast, the Visionary Leaders Circle! Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and others. Develop your edge to become an impactful leader. Learn from distinguished guests, leadership experts, and your host, Dr. Ginny A. Baro. Leave us a five-star review so others can find us. And to be our guest, email us at info@executivebound.com. Enjoy: www.executivebound.com/podcast. #8 - Read our blog & share it! Keep your mind fresh with ideas. Retool with strategies to navigate challenges at work and in life. And take action that will propel you forward. Knowledge and execution are power. Visit our blog, and if you enjoy the articles, please share them with your friends and colleagues.
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Dr. Ginny A. Baro is an award-winning transformational speaker & leadership coach, career strategist, and #1 best-selling author of Healing Leadership and Fearless Women at Work. Ginny specializes in partnering with organizations and ERGs to develop leadership dream teams. And she supports individuals navigating a corporate hierarchy or transitioning into an entirely new phase of their career. She has successfully facilitated live and virtual leadership training and coaching programs for individuals and Fortune 500 companies with over 140,000 employees, and delivered keynotes impacting global audiences larger than 7,000. To learn more, visit ExecutiveBound.
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