Leadership progress - how are you travelling?

Here’s a generalised bit of feedback for anyone wondering how they are going at leading their team right now: You’re doing awesome.

I’m basing that on my observations of leaders I work with who stop to reflect on, and try to get better at, the way they are leading. In my experience, those people continuously improve. Sometimes it can feel like a slow slog (or even a backwards shift), other times you’ll be flying along. If the things you are trying are in service of growing your leadership awesomeness, you’re winning.

What if you paused to check on just what kind of difference you are making? Here are three prompts similar to an approach we use in Potent Leaders:

• In the zone: What’s something you are nailing about your leadership approach right now? Stand in your strength and own it.

• Feeling the burn: What are you leaning into that’s really challenging you right now? What are you learning from it and how is it helping you become the leader you want to be?

• Wowing the crowd: How have you surprised yourself (and maybe your team or others)? What’s an unexpected strength you’ve developed or discovered in what is a pretty challenging time for many teams and organisations right now?

If you’ve worked through these three prompts and are curious to know whether you’re self-awareness function is well calibrated, why not put these questions to your team? What do they think you are nailing, how are they seeing you stretch, how have you surprised them?

Or maybe you could try the three prompts as a team. When the heat is on and success is off in the distance, it can be easy to lose sight of the progress we’re making. Finding ways to check in, reflect and acknowledge each other is a great way of refuelling for the next leg of the journey.