The Key That Unlocks Extraordinary Leadership

How do extraordinary leaders create massive results within their teams and organizations?

I'd often wonder, "how do they do it?"

There is one key shift that all great leaders make that fundamentally change how they lead and the results they create.

I remember a time when I felt inadequate as a leader.  This belief led me to overcompensate. 

Trying hard to fake it until I made it, my focus was on what others thought of me as a leader.

This only hurt my abilities to lead and influence my team.

In this video, I share a key lesson.  Figuring out this one thing can fundamentally change your perspective of leadership and your abilities to lead well. 

In this video, we'll explore the fundamental shift all extraordinary leaders make to tap their next level of influence and results within their team and organization.

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The 5 Tweaks to Tap Your Next Level of Executive Presence.  Sign up now and I'll email it to you!

The Key That Unlocks Extraordinary Leadership

Transcript - March 19, 2020

What is it about extraordinary leaders in their abilities to get massive results from the teams that they work with and their organizations?

Hi, I'm Zach. I'm a performance and leadership coach. I work with leaders and small business owners, helping them create the results that they desire most in their life and in their business.

Over the next several weeks, we're going to be doing a leadership series, where we're going to be exploring several topics.

One of which today, we're going to be exploring what is the major shift that all leaders make, when they move from good to great.

What is that shift? And maybe how do we navigate toward that as leaders. Then we're going to explore in upcoming videos, how to produce peak performance conditions for your team and we're going to explore some very specific traits to cultivate in yourself as you lead your team. teams to create a high-performance culture.

Today we're talking about extraordinary leadership and what is the major shift for leaders to make.

I remember a time in leadership for me personally, where I felt inadequate. I did not feel worthy of the position I was in. I felt like a fraud and imposter.

Over 70% of all executives, all leaders, have felt like or feel like a fraud. So it's a very normal thing. And I was there.

Because I felt like a fraud. I would constantly overcompensate my effort and how I was showing up. I was trying my behind off to be a great leader because I desired to be one.

I looked up to so many great leaders here in in in Kansas City, and other leaders like Coach K and John Wooden. I aspire to be like these other great leaders.

I found myself in leadership and I wasn't feeling like a great leader. I felt like a fraud, an imposter. I tried to overcompensate, I tried hard, and ultimately I forced my leadership.

I was trying to prove myself as a leader. By doing that I was trying to impress everybody else.

I needed to prove myself, I needed to show everybody else that I was a leader because I believed in my heart of hearts that everybody was viewing me as inadequate.

This is how I thought everybody saw me so I had to prove myself. I Had to show up to impress. And so what does that mean?

That means I overcompensated. I worked god awful hours getting up before 4 am and responded to every email within the hour. I was always dialed in.

I was dressed to impress, overdoing it on all fronts. Trying so stinking hard to be a great leader and check all the boxes.

I finally figured it out...I finally figured out this fundamental shift that I think a lot us as leaders end up making that moves us from good to great.

Looking back I'd consider myself a good leader. At that moment, however, I felt inadequate.

But looking back, yeah, I did well. I had people following me and we produced results. So yeah, I think those are some good indications that I did well as a leader.

But what I'm talking about here isn't just good leadership. I'm talking about how can you make that fundamental shift into extraordinary leadership? You shift away from a drive to impress, toward a desire to express.

I think all extraordinary leaders make this shift. Their desire to express is stronger than their drive to impress.

There's this creative expression about who they are and what they're doing and what they're building within their organization and within their teams, that first and foremost is meaningful to them.

For them, it's an expression of who they are through their team and the company that they're building.

It all becomes a work of art, an artistic, creative expression. Great leaders desire to fully express their vision, to fully express their values, and their purpose.

They use their organization and their teams as a vehicle to create that mission.

This is the fundamental shift that we're exploring--when you can go from being driven to impress and to a desire to express. This is more of an inside out expression of your leadership versus an externally driven drive to impress.

What angle do you take with your leadership?

Is it more a drive to prove yourself, because you feel maybe a little inadequate as a leader and so you overcompensate with your team, you try hard, you take yourself too seriously, and you just try really hard to be a great leader?

Or do you have an intrinsic desire to express what's meaningful to you, to bring it to life inside your team, your organization, in the project that you're working on, or at home and in your family?

This is the fundamental difference between being driven to prove yourself and driven to impress, and driven by a fear of failure compared to this desire to express your creative vision, and this desire to express who you are as an individual.

I love this quote from Steven Pressfield. He says, "our job in life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are, and become it."

This encapsulates extraordinary leadership when they've been able to make the shift from a drive to impress to a desire to express and more specifically to express who they.

When they do that they become extremely powerful as leaders. They become leaders that have immense influence with their team. People want to go to bat for them and they want to work their tail ends off for the leader's vision.

Aren't we all trying to make this shift as leaders?

And so I throw some questions out there for you to think about...

What's within you that's just waiting to be tapped and expressed fully into your organization?

What are your values that you stand for and what purpose are you trying to create?

What creativity could you infuse into your culture?

How can you best express this vision and turn it into a reality?

For more on this topic, I've created a white paper on the Five Tweaks to Tap Your Next Level of Executive Presence.

Below this video, there is a link or a signup form, that where you can enter your name and email and I'll email it to you. You'll also be subscribed to the future training we do.

In fact, you'll be the first to hear about Part Two and Three of this leadership series.

It's easy to unsubscribe. If you don't find value in what I'm sending, I'm not gonna take a personally if you unsubscribe.

I want to get this in front of you because it goes deeper into five major shifts that you can make as a leader to tap your next level, to move you from good to great, and that's what I want for you.

That's the work I do with clients, assisting them to really step into an authentic leadership style that really works for them and that feels so natural it becomes effortless.

That's what we're all after, right?

As we wrap, what are you driven by? A drive to impress everyone and prove yourself as a leader? Or are you past that and ready to step into your desire to express who you are and bring to life your creative expression through your leadership approach?

Stay tuned for parts two and three of this leadership series.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai