The challenges of leadership are not new. After all, William Shakespeare said, “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown” in the play Henry IV, published centuries ago in 1597.
It’s not a question of “if” challenges happen — but when. With the tumultuous year we’ve had, and challenges are coming thick and fast in the business world.
The following five steps will help you power through the challenges and make it through to the other side.
Anchor to your values.
Your values are the #1 thing to get you through even the toughest of times. They are the rock-solid foundation of you as a leader and a powerful source of confidence.
When you have strong, clear values, you can lead from strength and attract people around you who genuinely support your mission. This eradicates the impact of damage from flaws, weaknesses, and errors that are simply inevitable.
On a personal level, your values — along with your why — are the things that truly matter to you. These are the core drivers that carry people through the toughest of challenges.
Having strong values and knowing your reason “why” lessens the chance of folding at the first sign of resistance.
Make health a non-negotiable.
With busy lives, it is easy to let health and wellness slip. Those long hours working away leave little left in the tank for hitting the gym first thing in the morning. Those busy days with endless tasks swallow up the hours, and lunch is all but forgotten.
And those nights spent mostly awake through bursts of creativity, planning, and stresses leave little time for sleep.
If you don’t look after your health, it impacts your business.
If you are tired, bloated, hungry, and not making yourself a priority — it reflects your business.
Creativity and confidence are lost, and how you do one thing is how you do everything.
You don’t need to have a perfect health and fitness regime that starts at 4 am, takes 3 hours, and provides a kelp diet.
What you do need is small manageable actions to ensure you are taking care of yourself—getting a little more sleep—eating a little more healthy—doing the smallest amount of regular exercise. All things that can be done when your schedule is at its most hectic.
Find an outlet.
If you hyper fixate on business, you do yourself —and your company — more harm than good.
Your physical health should be non-negotiable. So should your mental health.
You need time off if you are going to hit it full on.
Having an outlet, a hobby, or other interests gives you a mental break from work you need. The result is filling up the “mental tanks” with the energy and creativity required to spark ideas and generate momentum.
Studies by the Harvard Business Review revealed that time pressure was a critical factor in reduced creativity, lower energy, and higher frustration. For employees, this can be a challenge during work hours that seeps into home life. For entrepreneurs and business owners, the effect can be even more dramatic. This is because there is a tendency to rarely clock off entirely, and the list of tasks placed upon ourselves grows exponentially over time.
Having time ringfenced as downtime with a hobby or interest in place sets aside space to re-energize and come back stronger mentally.
Get the right support.
Loyal support is invaluable for any successful leader. Skills and talents are useful yet trainable. Character and loyalty are not. They are ingrained into an individual’s personality.
Your values shape you as a leader, draw people towards your mission, and build support.
Filter those who are drawn to you to find those who truly support you. They aren’t the people who will cheer every time and agree with every word you say. They are the ones who will push back and have an opinion and thoughts of their own.
There will be people who won’t clap when you win and others who will turn on you when the time comes. Seizing an opportunity for themselves or abandoning ship at the first sign of trouble.
It’s a sad truth but a truth nonetheless.
Accepting that fact and not letting it impact you when the inevitable does happen is crucial.
Find your “minimum effective dose.”
The final step towards maintaining strong leadership in tough times is to decide your minimum effective dose of tasks and ensure they are consistently done.
It may not be the time for giant leaps and plans, yet your consistent baseline is what will allow you to push on through to the other side of whatever challenges come up.
What is the minimum amount of content you must create for your audience?
How many sales calls must you have?
How often must you check in with each team in your business if you have them?
It seems counter-intuitive to be focused on minimums. Yet, when you know the minimum requirement for ongoing success, you set a boundary that cannot be breached. Because you know that if you do — you need to make significant changes fast.
The most successful people in life and business face challenging times as well. The defining factor is what they do during those times.
Using the guidance above, you can physically, mentally, internally, and externally prepare yourself to face any challenge that comes your way to become a stronger leader in good times and bad.
* * *
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want to join our calls on a regular basis, please join us as a Premium Member, today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
Talk to you soon.
Photo Credit: Monkey Business Images on Shutterstock
