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The New Year Celebration is often a time of reflection and renewed motivation. Are you where you want to be? Are you doing what you wished you were? Are you performing at work in way you can be proud? They’re loaded questions to be sure and answering them all in one sitting can be overwhelming. Let’s add some structure and simplicity. These questions are all about the same thing. How are you leading? Both your own efforts and the efforts of others, applicable personally and professionally, answers to these kinds of queries propel you forward and show your progress. Take a moment this week to enjoy the time, engage in a little looking back, and even give yourself a bit of a pat on the back for how far you’ve come and how much you’ve done. Then take the first step to what comes next by addressing one by one, the following suggested structure.
What’s Changed?
Think about it. Change is the ever-present factor. Good or bad, and whether we like the change, or we don’t, leaders know that change is always happening.
- What’s changed in the last twelve months in your role, your team, and your leadership?
- What’s changed in the way you react, respond, or handle things?
What’s Required?
If there have been changes, there are likely new requirements. Have the changes resulted in a need for you to learn new skills or a new system? Have the changes simply demanded you develop patience or a respect for timing? (I hate it when that happens. LOL!) Have the changes changed your approach to time management? Has that merger changed the way in which you communicate and with whom communication is most frequent? Have they changed your office environment and are you still adjusting?
- What is needed for you to excel, or at least settle, into the changes?
- What is now required for you to be successful and happy in and among the changes?
What Stopped?
Not only do leaders find their environment constantly changing, they find some things disappearing completely. If only, the main element of your job that stopped was that one person who drove you nuts, suddenly up and quit! Maybe it happened, or maybe it was something far less dramatic. What in your office stopped happening? Did the energy go away? Did one employee change his or her behavior and stop whining, or trying?
- Do you need to lead a reinvigoration or let go of missing elements no longer present in your office?
What Needs to Begin?
Not only is the New Year, well, a new year, it is a new week, a new quarter, a new beginning and a fresh start seized with gusto for at least a few minutes. Think through your fresh start opportunity. As a leader in your office, your family, your department, your company, or your community, what needs to start happening? Do you need to take better notes? Do you need to speak up more often? Do you need to begin setting better boundaries? Do you need to actually craft a plan of action and development for that team you have the privilege of leading?
- What do you need to begin that would make a difference in the way, the people, and time you spend leading?
Happy New Year to you and yours and remember, the year might be just beginning, but you are well on the way of your own journey. Maybe now you celebrate how well your life is going and how much you love your position. Maybe now you celebrate what you’ve tolerated and start making decisions on what needs to happen for more positive events and occurrences. Maybe now you celebrate you’re still in it, still trying, still leading, and in fact, you’re crushing it!
Monica Wofford, CSP is a leadership development specialist who coaches, consults with, and speaks to leaders of all levels, building their skills, emotional intelligence and authenticity. Author of Contagious Leadership and Make Difficult People Disappear, Monica may be reached at www.ContagiousCompanies.com, www.MonicaWofford.com or by calling 1-866-382-0121.
