As an Introverted Leader, to Get Ahead in 2024, Be Intentional About It

Happy New Year Everyone!

This week, many of you will have made New Year’s resolutions or set yourselves goals for 2024, but the reality is that statistics show that many of you will not achieve them. Depending on what report you read, this figure is said to be over 90% of people who make New Year’s resolutions, do not achieve them.

The reality is, whether you want to be more influential and impactful as a leader, drive your organisation forward, get a promotion, make a career transition, or whatever it is that you want to achieve, you need to be intentional about it. Particularly as research suggests extraverted employees get more opportunities at work because their performance is more visible and the unfavourable bias towards introversion that we see.

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“There is no way to become great overnight, but in the marathon of success, it takes a lot of intention to see you through each day of the journey.”? - Lewis Howes

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Intentions provide the foundation for our goals and actions. When you live with intention, you become more mindful of the choices and decisions that you make. Being intentional about what you want to achieve, helps you to define your goals and the steps you need to take to make things happen. Here are some tips to help you be intentional about what you want to achieve this year:

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Create a vision for what you want to achieve

What are your long-term desires, not just for your career but for your whole life? Having a vision for what it is that you want to achieve (and developing a strategy as to how you will achieve it), makes it easier for you to not be swayed by the many distractions and knockbacks you may encounter along the way.

When thinking about your vision, it is important to think about both your professional and personal life as well. Also, think about your values and how you can align your work and life to them if you are not already doing so. If you are thinking of making a career transition, what are the values an organisation needs to have to align with your values and who you are?

Our values go to the core of who we are, and it is important that when we think about what we want in life, we make choices that align with our values. When we honour our values, it helps us to feel fulfilled, and make our lives and work meaningful. Working for an organisation whose values are not aligned with yours can lead to dissatisfaction and feeling unfulfilled.

Create a vision for your long-term career, getting as clear a picture as possible in your mind of what you want it to look like. If you can’t imagine what this could look like, think about what you don’t want as that may help you to identify what you do want.

You may find it helpful to create a visual representation of your vision. Not only is this empowering, having a visual reminder of what you are working towards can help with the motivation to keep going.

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Get clarity on what you need to do

Get clear about what it is you want to achieve and what is needed to make it happen. If you have made attempts to achieve what it is that you want and have been unsuccessful, what lessons can you learn from those previous experiences?

Once you have clarity about what you want to achieve, setting goals that take into account what you have gained from those lessons learned will help to provide you with focus and direction.

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Be strategic ?

When I was a leader in an organisation prior to starting my coaching business, I got my second to last promotion as a result of strategically positioning myself for it. I had been at a leadership conference and spoke to someone who worked in another area who told me she was in the early stages of pregnancy and going to be going on maternity leave. This meant a position would become available at the next level up to me.

Rather than waiting for the position to become available, when a position came up at the same level as I was on, I applied for it, got the role, and made a sideway move. I did this so that I could raise my visibility in the area where the position I wanted was.

Once I was working in that area, I took on area-wide responsibilities and led on area-wide initiatives. This helped me to raise my visibility and profile. When the position I wanted became available, I applied for it and got it. Whilst I got it on my merit, I am sure it helped that I had raised my visibility and self-promoted by taking on those extra responsibilities and leading on those initiatives.

What can you do to be strategic about your approach? What strategy can you adopt?

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Stay focused

How consistent are you with the actions you need to take? Did you start last year full of motivation but are now doing things half-heartedly? If you have lost motivation, don’t sit around waiting for the motivation to come, take action and the motivation will follow. Sometimes you’ve got to take the action even if you don’t feel like doing it.

Whilst giving things a miss on the odd occasion may not be too detrimental, if you consistently let things get in the way, or don’t take the action that is needed, you won’t get the results that you want.

Many distractions can get in the way of us achieving our goals. Sometimes things happen and we have no option but to put things on pause, or even abandon them, and that is ok. But if you are being distracted by things that are within your control, remember, focused consistent action gets results. Remain focused on taking the action that is needed to get the results that you want.

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Are you tired of getting the same old results time and time again, and not getting the promotion, being more confident, impactful, or influential as a leader, or whatever your thing is? If so, do something different for 2024 because as the saying goes, if you always do what you’ve always, done, you will always get what you’ve always got. So, what are you going to do differently?

To help you be intentional in 2024, join my upcoming LinkedIn live or webinar as follows:

In this LinkedIn live session on 10 January at 1pm GMT, I will share some common reasons why people don't achieve their goals, and what you can do to avoid this so that you set yourself up for success in 2024. Find out more and register here .

Join this free webinar on 25 January at 1pm GMT for an opportunity to be inspired and learn the number one strategy that you can use to accelerate your impact and influence as a senior leader and how to apply it. Find out more and register here .

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In this episode of the podcast, I talk about the benefits of setting intentions to help clarify your goals, and enhance your focus and motivation, as well as guiding your actions. I share an example of an intention that I set almost 3 years ago to illustrate how setting intentions can make a difference.