How Do We Keep Growing?

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How Do We Keep Growing?

“What got you here won't get you there" – Marshall Goldsmith

It was an absolute pleasure to be able to go to the surf beach this morning and watch my daughter tackle the waves on her new surfboard. She is new to the sport and as I was watching her get up, fall down, get up, fall down, (repeat this a lot of times) she was having an absolute blast and there was no hint of giving up. Even though she hadn't mastered surfing, she was having a lot of fun learning and tweaking after every fall.

My mind wandered for a moment and watching her reminded me how this rinse and repeat action is also incredibly relevant in our leadership development. Things don't always work out the way we thought they would. I believe the key is to take the learnings and make the necessary tweaks to keep us on our path. I think it was George Custer (US Military) who said "it's not how many times you get knocked down that count, it's how many times you get back up" and how true is that. We have all experienced this in our careers to date.

The fact that you are reading this article would suggest to me that you possibly enjoy the healthy tension that comes with continuous and conscious growth. The feelings of being able to do some things really well and that deep inner knowing that there is more you want and need to achieve. For those of us that hold this growth mindset, we are often excited about what we don't yet know. And maybe, if we are honest, we are a little bit nervous also. That's the healthy tension I referred to above and those feelings are often incredibly motivating.

The Leadership Growth Curve           

The Leadership Growth Curve has been around for a while.  It's based on a Sigmoid Curve which is an algebraic function and suggests that no growth is permanent or sustainable forever.  Every growth curve is eventually going to hit a plateau and if not addressed it will crash and burn.

The paradox is that in order to sustain success, we end out asking people to break what's working. Those people also include ourselves. We can sometimes wonder why we need to change things up in our leadership when everything seems to be going well. But if we look back, we can see that there are times when we plateau and it's often when we have started to decline that we have some sort of epiphany and decide to make a change.

Have you ever noticed that it is much easier to get people (and ourselves) to change when things aren't going well or when we are in a crisis? That is because the reason for the change is really clear. We can see it and most often we are feeling it! So, the trick is to not wait that long but to continuously look at the opportunities of when and how we can change our leadership so we can better serve the people around us. So yes, this can be harder because we are wanting to interrupt the current perceived 'success' and sometimes this can feel a bit counter-intuitive to what is happening in the current moment.

Practical Tips

Here are some practical tips to help you understand your leadership growth curve:

1.  Take a look at the Leadership Growth Curve above, where would you say you are on this at present?  Knowing where you are at any given time is the first step and enables you to make decisions about what you might do next.

2.  Take a moment to reflect back over your experiences and identify when you transitioned to change.  Where were you on the Growth Curve at that time?

3.  Is there something for you personally that might require you to check-in and see when change might be appropriate?  What's coming up for you over the next couple of months and are you in the best possible position to ensure success for you and for others?
 

Growth is often on the other side of hard work and being prepared to explore and try new ideas.  Sometimes new ideas may not always land you the exact results you hoped for but you will have learned something through the experience.  And, as we anticipate and experience a change in our leadership, we will achieve more personal growth whilst achieving the results we need with the impact we want.
  
So, what do you want to change in your leadership?

Need some help?

If you have made this the year where you want to see significant changes in your leadership, we should chat.  Email or phone me so we can explore if working together makes sense.

Something to think about ….

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