Let it be easy..

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It is time to come clean. To own up and acknowledge it. I am writing a book. One of those things that you can put on your shelves and look things up in. I have a lot of books, so don't really need to write one myself. But for some reason this one seems to want to be written rather a lot...

 

Most of the work I do seem to come down to the same thing - it is all about leadership. About the changes people make to become better leaders, about the way organisations work that require skilful leadership and about how many things can go wrong - or right - when good leadership is in place. Anyone who spends time speaking with me knows that I have strong ideas about how you build your leadership skills and about the foundation skills and beliefs that need to be in place. For me, leadership is about impact and inspiration. If you don't inspire people to do what you want them to do, your impact is mainly negative. The job might get done, but it will typically take longer, have fewer unique solutions and far less enthusiasm compared to when people are inspired to do it.

 

And what does this have to do with the headline? Well, my motto in life is 'Let it be easy'. Not as regards to the amount of work I do, but as in how hard I am on myself. Let it be easy. Let yourself be who you be. Work WITH who you are rather than against it. Let go of the stress of 'must', 'have to', 'need to' and 'can't'. Allow the possibility of possibilities to take over. And allow yourself to be true to who you are.

For me, that is the first foundation skill of leadership. In order to be a true leader, it is important to know who you are - and be comfortable with it. True leadership isn't about you. It is about your beliefs and values and about how you communicate those. It is about believing something so strongly that you are willing to be passionate about it and willing to risk ridicule and doubt from other people when you talk about it. It is about passionate belief that is so true to you that you can stay the course no matter what is thrown in your way - because it MATTERS to you. That is where true leadership starts for me. And I guess that is why I am writing a book. Because true, inspirational leadership is something that I am passionate about. Something that I am willing to talk about even though I potentially risk negative responses from other people who may see it differently. That is fine. Because true leaders also acknowledge that everyone is in a different place and what is right for one person isn't necessarily right for others.

The important thing is that everyone can be a leader. Anywhere.