I've just returned home after facilitating another leadership retreat, this time with an amazing group of women lawyers in my home state of New York. It prompted me to think more about the call to leadership.
The call to leadership is not only about the people we lead but also about ourselves. If we want to lead, we are challenged to grow and change at the deepest personal level.
There are three main challenges an aspiring leader must accept, to:
- think bigger
- listen better
- exit the comfort zone
This last challenge is the toughest. Successful leaders recognize and grow past their limited beliefs and their personal temperaments.
Nelson Mandela, for example, started out as a passionate, emotionally-driven young man with a cause. What he realized in prison was that, in order to truly lead, he needed to learn discipline. He needed to become a measured and balanced man if he wanted to build a nation. Despite fear, he projected calm. Despite bitterness, he embraced forgiveness.
Leadership, in other words, demands clarity. The clarity that leads to commitment and change.
