The Leader's 3-2-1: Three insights, two questions, and one statistic.
“Leadership is always fun and easy.” - said no leader ever.
Building a thriving leadership will have its challenges. Especially when you're new to leadership or in a new role. Vulnerability fatigue is when challenges consistently outpace comforts, resulting in a drain on your resilience battery. You need both challenge and comfort to thrive. Resilience requires holding two truths in balance:
Real growth is found beyond the moments we want to quit. We grow when we test limits and endure.
AND… quit is not a dirty word. We need to know when to give ourselves permission to stop, reflect and seek the TLC needed to recharge resilience.
Today's insights require you to pause, zoom out, and reflect from a 10,000 foot view. Grab a pen and paper and recharge your resilience in 3-2-1:
Three Insights
Connect to your purpose in the present.
At your core, what really matters to you? How is this role advancing it? Helpful writing starters: “I'm in this role for the sake of…” or “I'm in this role because I have a duty to…” Hint: dig for something deeper than money, status and power. These are normal human desires, but are not the depth at which true grit rises.
Look to the future.
How you choose to show up to struggles can either boost resilience or further drain it. Use the future to inspire a choice that boosts. What legacy do you want to leave behind? What three words describe how you can choose that legacy right now? Legacy is more often built in the hard moments than the easy ones.
Look to the past.
Resilience skills, whether work or life, are transferrable. Reflect on a past situation that put you out of your depth and challenged you to grow beyond what you thought was possible. What is one powerful mindset that got you through? What is one lesson you learned from that situation that you can re-use now?
Two Questions
What boundaries need to be set or updated?
Your resilience battery needs boundaries in order to maintain its charge. Vulnerability fatigue can be a sign boundaries need to be set or updated. Check out this boundaries tool for support.
What are your metrics for success and failure?
Vulnerability fatigue is intensified by chasing unexamined metrics that are beyond your control. Discard metrics like needing to always be liked, achieve 100% approval for decisions and ensure perpetual team happiness. Shift to values-driven, process-based metrics that are within your control.
One Statistic
Connecting to purpose boosts resilience 6.5x over.
“Those employees who say that they live their purpose at work are six and a half times more likely to report higher resilience. They’re four times more likely to report better health, six times more likely to want to stay at the company, and one and a half times more likely to go above and beyond to make their company successful.”
-Bill Schaninger, Senior Partner at McKinsey & Co
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