What Type Of Leader Do You Want To Be? – A Leadership Exercise

Are you passionate about becoming an effective leader but not sure where you stand in the leadership effectiveness scale?  Do you truly understand what type of leader you want to be?  Here is a leadership exercise to help you find out.

In my last post, I mentioned that the one important key in becoming an effective leader is mindset.

If you have the right attitude about the importance of leadership, you will do what is required to grow as a leader.

Leadership is hard and the journey to leadership success is long.

How do you keep motivated to keep going when you encounter obstacles in your way such as:

• Time constraints
• Performance Issues with your team members
• Geography constraints when you are leading remotely

And more?

You keep the End Result in Mind.  Keep the vision strong of what type of leader you want to be.

In a recent leadership effectiveness workshop I performed, I asked the group to perform the following exercise to help them keep in mind what is important.

To perform this exercise, take out a notepad or piece of paper and pen.

Imagine yourself 3 years from now.  You enter a room that has a two-sided mirror.  You look into a room and see all the people your leadership has influenced from today until the next 3 years.  You see them, but they cannot see you.

There is an interviewer sitting in the middle of the group asking them questions about the effectiveness of your leadership.

Now imagine what answers you would like to hear.  What is your ideal scenario?

How would you like them to answer the following questions:

How did you motivate them?

What impact did you have on their performance?

How did you make their job easier?

How did you inspire them?

How did you help them grow as leaders themselves?

How many people in the room do you want to see promoted because of you?

How did this exercise make you feel?  Hopefully, it drove you to want to achieve those results.

Your answers to these questions can now become your personal leadership development Goals.  Your next step should be in writing out what actions you need to perform in order to achieve these goals.

When you come across a difficult leadership challenge you may wonder if the effort is worth it.  Review your notes from this exercise and put yourself in the right mindset.

MAKE IT HAPPEN

You can perform this same exercise for any role you have; parent, spouse, friend etc…

Keep fresh in your mind who you want to be.  Then work hard at becoming that person.

If you tried this exercise yourself, let me know what you think.