5 ways developing leadership skills will transform you.

5 ways developing leadership skills will transform you.

There is much talk about how leaders can make a different, why you should be a leader, how the world needs more leaders, etc. But what are some of the actual benefits of being a leader and acquiring that leader mindset in the first place? 

Rather than share plenty of my own experiences, I thought it better to ask others how leadership and being a leader has transformed them. Here you go. 5 ways developing leadership skills will transform you.  

Leadership helped resolve unsettled issues within me – ‘AT’. 

Very few wake up in the morning and say to themselves ‘How can I be more of a jerk or a**hole to the people around me?’ I am sure there are such people, but I have not met them. I like to believe that nobody who is in a management position in an organisation sets out to intentionally make life harder or miserable for those around them.  

As ‘AT’ said it best. “If we have unsettled issues within us, we tend to project them to the people around us. Leadership starts with leading self. It took me a while to figure this out.”  

I totally agree with this. The way we treat those around me is really a reflection of how we treat myself. A decision to be a leader is a decision to transform into a better version of yourself every single day. That is what leadership and being a successful leader requires of you. It is this unrelenting effort to improve that made AT a better person.   

Leadership helped me discover different aspects of myself. It has made me more accountable. – ‘SN’. 

Management is about getting results. Leadership, on the other hand, is about factoring in the people who are responsible for the results. If you want to get the best out of the people you work with, so they can produce the desired results, then you have to be aware of and be accountable for your words, actions, and decisions.   

That was what SN was pointing at. If you have one standard for yourself, and another standard for others, then there is inconsistency, and that damages your leadership. If you can’t even follow your own words, why should they follow yours? 

That is why successful leaders are very accountable to themselves. They know that with every word, action, and decision when leading others, they are putting their leadership on the line. This sense of accountability leads them to be more mindful and thoughtful of themselves, and the impact that they can have on others.  

Leadership is relearning how to be human and caring for those under our care. – ‘AS’. 

‘AS’ shared with me that he used to think that leadership was all about managing ‘stuff’. People were simply a means to achieving results. Often when working in a large corporation, it is easy to reduce each individual human being to just numbers of computer system. When we do that, we wonder why turnover is high, creativity and innovation is low, relationships among colleagues are terrible, etc. 

As I mentioned earlier, leadership is taking into consideration the people who produce the results. When you start seeing the people you work with as human being with their own fears, concerns, and a desire for their work to help them achieve their hopes and dreams, then you start to understand that being a leader also means caring about creating a conducive workplace for those who work for you. 

Ever wonder why the saying, and I paraphrase: ‘When people know that their leader cares for them, they will care about the work they do.’  

You become more consistent in who you are as a person at work and at home. Being a parent has made me a better leader, and vice versa. – ‘MG’ 

Almost all of us have experienced colleagues and bosses who displays one personality at work, and then a totally different personality out of work. There are many in management who believe that being a leader means living up to certain self-conceived notions of leadership.  

Yes, and No.  

Yes, because people expect a leader to lead them to their success, to make their lives better.  

No, because people desire their leader to be relatable, to be authentic and consistent as a person.  

If a leader has split personality in and out of work, then how will those around the leader get a sense of who that person truly is? 

That is why successful leaders at any level are one and the same in and out of work. They are consistent, comfortable, and confident with who are they. That consistency is not only liberating for the leader who no longer needs to pretend, it also allows others to see the leader as authentic.  

Leadership rekindled my interest in my professional work – Me. 

By the end of my corporate career in 2016, I was pretty done with my career in Human Resources (HR). I was completely spent, saw a limit to my growth in the industry, and was happy to leave. I was right. That limit was due to my mindset. 

I was trapped into thinking that leadership was a position when actually it is a mindset. Because I could not get that coveted promotion to lead my own HR team, I felt washed-out. The reality was once I understood and embraced that leadership is a mindset, it showed up in my personal brand. The job opportunities to lead others started coming in. By then, I did not need them anymore. 

Now when I help first time leaders shift from an employee mindset to a leader mindset, by replacing their uncertainty and confusion with confidence and clarity in their own leadership, I started to see new possibilities again, and it rekindled my interest in the HR industry.  

That’s it, everyone. 5 ways developing leadership skills will transform you. Did any of these 5 resonate with you? Let me know.