Leadership confidence is an integration process. Beyond the tasks of your executive role, who you are as a leader is as much a matter of awareness and attentive design and sculpting as it is a development process.
Personal and professional development as a leader involves intentional integration. Notice, as you observe leaders around you and in the media, if these leaders are leading from one of three primary internal leadership domains: their head, their heart, or their gut. Once you start paying attention, it’s fairly obvious which type of leader they are. Of course, as multi-dimensional human beings, all of us are capable of leading from all three domains, but most people gravitate towards the one that is easiest, most familiar, and most comfortable for them. It’s all unconscious, and automatic.
Experiment with it for yourself. Which one are you primarily? If you’re not sure, ask someone you trust who has seen you lead.
Head: You’re intellectual, logical, knowledgeable, and a problem-solver.
Heart: You’re relational, empathetic, compassionate, and care deeply.
Gut: You’re instinctive, reactionary, quick-reflexes, and decisive.
What’s possible if you consciously choose to lead from one or more of your non-primary leadership domains based on the situation you’re facing? Can you experiment with trying to lead from one of the other domains? For example, if you’re a head leader, can you bring forth your own personal expression of heart leadership or gut leadership for different scenarios?
True leadership confidence comes from mastering the ability to integrate all three for a meaningful external purpose. Whether that purpose is to influence, to guide, or to serve, your reasons why you wish to integrate matter. What is the impact you wish to have that is important enough to develop your skill of integration?
What have you discovered about leadership and yourself at those times when you’ve integrated your head, heart, and gut successfully?
Click here to take our Leadership Confidence Assessment (bottom left corner of the page).