You are Not Broken, You’re Just Not Leading with Your M.O.

Have you ever felt like you were broken? Felt like “something must be wrong with me”, because others seemed to do things so easily and those same things are a struggle for you??

I definitely used to think something was wrong with me, that somehow I was broken or couldn’t do things the way everyone else seemed to be able to do them. It all seemed so much easier for others. For instance, why couldn’t I stay super organized, I mean how hard could it be? Every January I would buy the planner and start with all good intentions of keeping on track and writing everything down, but then February hit and it all went downhill and by March I couldn’t even tell you where the planner was.?

In addition I was always told that I had “Shiny object syndrome” or I heard, “Why can’t you ever finish anything you start” and every variation of that you could think of.? Again that made me believe something was wrong with me, especially as I stepped more and more into leadership roles (which, btw, I was very good at leading and organizing others). The result was, I kept trying to be different, to be "better", fighting against my own grain to do things the way I saw others do them or was told how I should do them.?

After a while in my entrepreneurial journey, I shifted gears and made the decision to redirect my target audience into the corporate marketplace and I hired a coach. One of her standard onboarding procedures was to give all her clients assessments. One of those assessments was a Kolbe Assessment.

Holy Cow did that change so much for me. The beauty of Kolbe is that unlike any other assessment, it assesses the Conative part of the mind, which is where our instinct “to do”, problem solve and strive come from. It is your M.O. or Modus Operandi, your innate drives and it is a faculty of the mind that controls mental energy, need and volition. The only real? thing that can override the Conative drive is motivation.?

Albert Einstein said, “Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live it’s entire life believing its stupid”.?

In the months following my completion of this assessment, as I learned more about my results, I realized Albert Einstein was talking about me. I was not stupid after all, I was a genius except I was like that fish trying to climb up a tree and always feeling like a fish out of water. I came to realize that the truth was, I never really understood my own strengths and definitely not my Conative strengths. The things that society saw as my flaws or weaknesses were in fact some of my greatest strengths.

I didn't have shiny object syndrome, I was multi-talented and multi-faceted with many interests that I excelled in. I wasn’t disorganized, I moved so quickly that traditional methods of organization didn’t work for me because it slowed me down and required attention to too many details. I wasn’t a quitter, I actually knew how to start a project very well and needed to understand that I had to gather the right support system and a team to hand it off to, those who were great at taking it all the way to the finish line with systems and processes. Plus I was also someone who quickly knew when to say goodbye to a project that was no longer worth my time and energy and I was totally undaunted by what others would consider as a “failure” but rather was able to learn and take valuable intel away with it to help me on my next endeavor.?

So here’s what I learned. We are all complex beings and the way we approach leading others is different depending on how our brains are wired. My experience with Kolbe led me to becoming a Kolbe Certified Consultant? so I can help other leaders identify their Conative strengths and how they can best utilize those strengths to be more effective leaders in life and business. Then harness those to build a stronger team around them. It's why I do the work I do and am so passionate about it. What are your innate leadership strengths?

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