Welcome back to the Ask Dr Annika blog in this early part of 2019. In my weekly dose of calm, I help stressed-out business leaders to calm down and do a better job.
It’s now the beginning of January with the whole of 2019 in front of us. It’s a time to reflect and the time to think of “what do I want to make of this upcoming year and what can I change from last year.”
I read an article the other day that was a guide for new leaders, for young leaders and people who have not been leaders for a long time.
There are two different ways to look at being in authority in the workplace, there’s being the boss and then there’s being a leader. When you’re in a position of authority you are the “boss” and being the boss doesn’t necessarily make you a leader. If you are a boss you have the authority but to be a leader you need to have a different kind of authority among the people that you are supposed to lead. A great leader does not have the authority just by the rules they set but by the heart of the people.
That’s what I love to help people to build into their leadership or position as “boss”.
Let’s get back to the article and the points that I feel will help you approach your leadership in 2019. I read a few things that I think that everyone who is in this position can reflect on and maybe you’ll even be reminded to apply these points again if you have forgotten along the way.
I want to take some of the points that they talked about in this article the first thing was that:
Leadership or career is not a sprint race it’s a marathon, a long-term one. You have to take care of your energy so that you will last all the way to the end. So you have to stop and reflect every now and then and don’t just run, run, run. Sit down, take a deep breath, let your journey take it’s time because if you do work consistently and you do the hard work and not just the hustling then you will be good at what you do, because doing things over and over again in a good manner, well that’s good practice and that makes you good at what you do.
You have to do it over and over again to be the best. Take for example all the people that are musicians, they need to rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and then they are the best in the end and it’s the same way with leadership.
The second thing that I think was very important in this article was that leadership is about people not about things. You have to handle people not lists of things to do because the way you handle the people that’s the result you’re going to get. So you need to practice to listen to what other people say. You are still the boss and you are the one that has the final decision but if you listen to your people then your decisions are probably going to be better for the whole organization.
So that’s the second thing I wanted to point out – it’s about people so take care of the people.
The third thing that was also very good that I think is especially important for young leaders but also for everyone really is that you get yourself a broad spectrum of ages in the network that you have. Have friends or colleagues in all age ranges because then you’ll get new ideas from young people and you’ll have the wisdom of experience from people that have been a great leader for some time.
You should also find people that that’s that are the same kind of people that you are, in that sense that you feel fine with them. I’m not telling you that you all should be exactly the same because that is not a good workgroup in itself because then you will not see or hear new ideas because you are all of the same mind.
You need people from with different kind of views but you have to have people that you like and you can like people with different views than the ones that you have or people seeing things from different views that you do on an everyday basis.
Finally, let’s look at mistakes. Mistakes are something inevitable in life and in the workplace. If you make mistakes or if your people make mistakes see it as money for learning because everyone does mistakes it’s it’s inevitable and everyone will do it, even you. Even if you think you’re perfect you will do mistakes every now and then and that’s fine as long as you stand for what you have done and you can say excuse me I am sorry if it was hurting someone or costing someone else something. You’re only human and making mistakes is human.
These are the things that I wanted to reflect on before getting fully into the swing of 2019. I wish you a very very happy new year and a very prosperous one and I hope that my little tips will start helping you to reflect on what is important really because it’s people that’s important in the long run and don’t forget your family of course they are more important than anything.
Remember if you do need help with anything when it comes to stress management for yourself at work or in relation to your work team then feel free to connect. You can click the link below to connect and we’ll have a chat. Until next time.
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