Breaking Through: Exemplary Leadership For Overcoming Limiting Beliefs

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~ Henry Ford

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For most people,?professional?athletes are the pinnacle of health, peak performance, determination, goal-setting, and actualising?leadership?potential.

For themselves and others!

It's a paradox that even professional athletes, often seen as paragons of self-leadership potential and prowess, can be held back by their?limiting beliefs.

Over the course of almost ten years of operating my business, I've been privileged to serve two professional athletes as my valued clients on semi-annual and annual contracts.

This unique experience has granted me a profound understanding of these athletes' challenges in realising and reaching their full leadership potential.

? Both sought my services to improve their personal and professional leadership, recognising that their limiting beliefs held them back.

? They also quickly pointed out their struggles were not unique, as they shared their professional work environment and culture specifics.

THE SOURCE OF LIMITING BELIEFS

To better understand limiting beliefs, it is essential to know that all our beliefs - limiting or illimitable - come from external outcomes!

Because when we are born, we figuratively come as a white canvas, and our families, friends, society, and cultures are what shape our belief system!

Therefore, before becoming adults, we have collected a wealth of limiting beliefs because so many different people have told us or given us living proof that we are limited in many areas of our lives.

With this?blueprint, people suddenly face different personal and professional challenges that directly trigger and play into their limiting beliefs.

Consequently, as part of personal development, we have to work on those and reframe them, which is precisely why my former clients sought my professional leadership services!

HAVING ALL THE ANSWERS

Most men and women get promoted to leadership positions primarily based on their?education,?experience, ability or competence, and everybody they lead values their ability to articulate vision and direction clearly.

Thus, they are supposed to be the most intelligent and capable people in the room, and if they don't know or can't do, they can't possibly lead and perform effectively.

? True? One word - False!

Not knowing as an executive, leader, or entrepreneur is a prerequisite for?curiosity, which in turn fosters?humility?and the ability to?innovate.

Those who value curiosity over?knowledge?tend to facilitate the exchange of diverse perspectives and foster healthy?communication?to debate and discuss within their teams, companies, organisations or businesses they lead.

Yet, executives and leaders who can thrive in such?ambiguity?are rare!

NEVER SHOWING SIGNS OF WEAKNESS

Of course, they must always project strength and the will to overcome?adversity.

Because as soon as executives, leaders, and entrepreneurs show only the slightest hint of weakness, the big, dire wolves will attack and go for their throats.

? Well, that is only one side of the story!

Exemplary executives, leaders, and entrepreneurs also know how to demonstrate?vulnerability?to increase their?approachability?and authenticity?with those they lead.

In doing so, they connect with them meaningfully and inspire far more engagement?than the perceived invulnerable and immortal ones ever could.

Once more, executives, leaders, and entrepreneurs must know how to ask for help!

No one with leadership responsibility can succeed alone, and if they believe that asking for help is a sign of weakness, they have already significantly limited their leadership potential.

THEY CAN'T OPERATE WITHOUT ME

Also, executives, leaders, and entrepreneurs often profoundly believe that their team, company, organisation, or business can't operate without them!

This belief was undoubtedly the most critical limiting and perceived truth for both of my clients as they feared the doomed fall apart when they got injured.

Which eventually happened to both of them!

When transferred back to other?corporate?and entrepreneurial business environments, it also could be things like becoming ill or going on a more extended vacation to recharge, as important things won't get done right unless they are personally involved, right?

? All those beliefs are so untrue; if anything, that's a manager's story, not one of executives, leaders, or entrepreneurs!

Instead of seeking to relinquish control and manage, they recognise that the true hallmark of their leadership is their ability to walk away from a situation and trust that things will be executed in their absence.

Why?

Exemplary executives, leaders, and entrepreneurs always strive to create more leaders, fostering a culture of leadership that promotes constant training, coaching, and mentoring for overall improvement.

In that way, their leadership ability becomes more about the quality of those they lead than their skill, which would benefit most business environments.

Instead, there are sadly still too many executives, leaders, and entrepreneurs who believe training those they lead too well makes them expendable, and they should honestly ask themselves if they need to be the hero or relish creating heroes?

Because all profound and exemplary leadership value the latter!

ENFORCING THE RULES

There is a reason for existing?rules, and executives, leaders, and entrepreneurs are responsible for ensuring that those they lead work within the social contracts we generally agree upon.

Because if they don't, the result is chaos and disorder, and no team, company, organisation or business can survive in such conditions!

Interestingly, it is also not 100% accurate because, in reality, leadership is about managing two operating systems.

One that limits risk and one that encourages experimentation and change!

To balance those opposing directions, executives, leaders, and entrepreneurs must fully own their?responsibility?to provide?stability?and act ethically.

Yet, they also have to push boundaries and realise that sometimes rules exist to stifle?innovation, preserve the status quo, and bring outliers back to average!

So the most crucial question is...

What's paramount in a specific moment with a particular situation at hand, and what's necessary to overcome a specific challenge while meeting others' expectations or redefining the expectations altogether?

MY LEADERSHIP TRUTH

My sole intention in sharing those parts of my experiences of guiding and supporting two athletes with my professional leadership services regarding their limiting beliefs is...

To promote food for thought!

Because when transferred to other dynamic business environments, executives, leaders, and entrepreneurs...

Also must free themselves from the external blueprint of limiting beliefs!

And to achieve peak performance as part of their exemplary leadership, they must establish new ways to foster leadership beliefs that benefit themselves and those they lead.

Ultimately, the key to achieving this is not to limit?challenges but to challenge limits, especially those imposed by beliefs!

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#LeadershipDevelopment #ExemplaryLeadership #LeadershipBeliefs