Welcome to Session 2 of the Primary Leadership Development.
Section 2 – Introduction to Leadership
The Importance of leadership in professional growth
Leadership in professional growth is important in that as you grow professionally others, your peers, colleagues will start to see you as the next iteration of who you were.
Additionally, you will start to see them in a different light. For those in positions above you, you will get it. You will see them for who, what they are and most importantly why they are the way they are. Now they are within reach. Where they were just out of arm’s length.
Another aspect of the importance of leadership in professional growth is that you must challenge yourself. You must challenge yourself every day. Everyday you must become better than you were yesterday. When it comes to challenging yourself there are two things to remember:
– You are not trying to be better than anyone but yourself.
– You set the limits you want to reach, the goals you want to accomplish.
By only to be better than yourself, you put yourself in that unique place where you are what matters most. Now hear me out with this.
You must matter the most. All my life I have heard you have to put your family first, or put God or the deity of your choice first.
I have seen too many people do that. They put others first and soon, not later, they find themselves lacking. They find themselves just unable to continue.
If we fall, if we fail, if cannot continue then what good are we to our family and our faith. I firmly believe you must put yourself first. You must put yourself first to take care of yourself otherwise what good will you be to anyone?
So, when it comes to growth you have to take the initiative to make it happen. Everyone is out for themselves. Everyone. This does not mean that the world is cynical, what it means is that as we move through our professional lives, we must remember that others are doing the same thing.
This takes us to the next part of this session.
Self-Assessment and Goal Setting.
As we work to better ourselves there must come a point where we look inward before we can look outward. To travel down the right path, we need to make absolutely certain where you are going and most importantly is this the right path for you.
Knowing if you are on the right path begins with knowing two things:
- Who you are?
and - Where or Who you want to be?
Therefore, the sooner you can get to the answer the sooner you can get on the right track. Additionally, these two questions are two that you should always be asking you.
You should be asking these periodically almost in the same consistent manner as ship’s captain or aircraft pilot is constantly checking their navigation charts either on paper or electronic or both. They do so to ensure they are on the right course, the right path.
By knowing who you are and where you want to be then you are ready to set your goals.
Setting goals is critical towards your personal and professional growth. Once determined what your goals are, you can begin doing something I like very much and that is backward planning.
You have a goal that you want to accomplish, then you start to break it down into bite sized deliverables which build on each other until you ultimately reach your goal.
A word or two about what to do after you reach your goal:
Once you reach your goal, you are ready to create a new goal.
Of course, make certain you are self-assessing along the way, the entire way.
HOMEWORK
(click here to download Session 2 Homework Worksheet in PDF)
For Section 2 your homework assignment is to, in writing, start listing the goals you want to accomplish for this year. If you need some help here is how I work to set my goals.
I get a sheet of paper and draw four horizontal lines to create five evenly spaced boxes. In the first box I label it PHYSICAL, the next MENTAL, next WIFE/SPOUSE/PARTNER, followed by FAMILY, and lastly FINANCIAL.
In each sections, I put down one or two clearly defined goals that I want to accomplish over the course of this year. Now it’s your turn. Remember, if a goal is written then it is real, it is tangible and it can be accomplished.