Is it time for a leadership reset?

I’ve just come off a meeting with a potential new senior client and they described being so caught up in the weeds and the busy work that they have lost sight of who they wanted to be and where they want to go in their career. They went on to share that they don't feel like they're showing up as their best selves, as a leader and that things just haven’t been very fun recently with restructures and the pressure of the market right now.

This is a common conversation I’m having right now with many of the leaders that I work with. It's unsurprising given that many of us are currently battling with the demands on our time and energy, the pace we are expected to work at and all the complexity and change that we're dealing with. I know from personal experience that it can really take its toll.

So today, I really wanted to check in with how you were going. It feels very appropriate to do this given it was ‘RU OK?’ Day last week...you were potentially asking this question of others but has anyone asked it of you?

Are you OK?

If you do relate to some of the above, then I want you to know you are not alone. Here are the top three challenges that I hear from leaders when they get into this cycle of busy work and pressure.

Top 3 Challenges On The Cycle Of Busy

1. I'm just dealing with the urgent things and not the important things.

2. I feel that I'm short and snappy with my team I’m not creating the space to really be open and collaborative.

3. I've lost sight of my purpose and I'm not sure if I'm really adding value here or I’m enjoying things.

I can safely say I've felt all three elements above at points and when we get into this zone, it can feel like we're not making progress. So, if you feel a bit like this right now, |FNAME|, then here are my top three strategies for resetting your leadership.

Top 3 Strategies For Resetting Your Leadership

1. The pace and the space. I’m shamelessly borrowing this from one of my long-term CMO’s that I work with – it's one of her fav sayings but essentially, we must be intentional about our thinking time. We can't just fill our diaries with meetings, meetings, meetings. Blocking out key chunks of working time, particularly in the morning, can help us to focus on the important things and make us feel like we're making progress.

2. Reset your values. I focus on my values every day (they are on a post-it-note on my computer screen as we speak). If you want to be say; present, open, and collaborative with others then we must focus on the decisions and actions that these values would have us take. I tend to take 5 minutes at the start of my day to look at the meetings I have coming up and think about what these values mean for how I want to show up.

3. Get on the balcony. Make time to get onto the balcony of your life to connect with the bigger picture and your purpose. Carve out 45mins in your diary this week to reflect on the last month and areas, tasks or people that you were working with that felt meaningful and/or that you felt connected to a sense of purpose. Then look at your projects and deliverables in the month ahead. Where can you prioritise and align on those projects that are meaningful and do more of those? Where can you delegate to other members of your team in places that may be meaningful to them but don’t play to your strengths?

I really hope this has been helpful today, especially if you feel like you've been caught up in the business of life and work at the moment and frankly you are not feeling OK about it...

As always, love to hear how you go. Please feel free DM me if you want to share or go deeper on this topic of re-setting your leadership intent...

Here's to being more luminous in our life and work.