Good morning and happy Monday!
I’m Monica Wofford and this is your Monday Moment.
I have a secret. You ready? Leadership is not always easy. This is information I’m sure you’ve discovered. And if perhaps, you’re newly promoted, it might be an ever-continuing rude awakening. But there is hope. There is a way to be doggedly persistent in the area of leadership, and to get the job done, and still have a modicum of fun, and be very, very good at the position into which you’ve been promoted, or the position that you long ago earned. Today’s focus is on that dogged persistence and what it sometimes takes to be effective in his arena we call leadership.
As we have progressed with our video Monday Moment format you’ll find we talk about feedback and delegation and communication and we’ll still address hiring issues and how to deal with a difficult employee, or as I like to say, make them disappear, without these torrid consequences, but today, and this month, is about barriers. One of them is giving up too soon, or feeling like there’s not a lot of hope in your situation. So how do you create dogged persistence and how can you be doggedly persistent? Well it takes at least these three things, and here are three suggestions in fact that will help you improve this skill in the area of leadership persistence.
Push Through One Thing
Number one, push through one thing. Now if you and I have talked before you probably read or heard me recommend, The One Thing, a book by Gary Keller. It’s about focus and prioritization, but when it comes to persistence, your focus is on one thing. My encouragement is that you push through one thing. Try not to be persistent in 15 different areas because, well candidly, that’s exhausting, and if you don’t push through on all of them you may end up feeling like you’re failing, and that’ll be draining on your level of energy. So, pick one thing, one goal or resolution, one plan or initiative, and push through in that one area, no matter how difficult, no matter how simple. Repetitious persistence helps you build that muscle.
Speed Up Your Actions
Secondly, find a way to speed up your actions. If you’re moving so fast you don’t have time to think about all the other things you could be doing, you also don’t have time as a leader to think about all the possible problems, or the fears that could be coming. Speed up your actions. One way I do this is through limited, and very strategic, procrastination. Yes, believe it or not, I will purposely procrastinate, because it builds for me, a sense of pressure. Maybe that will work for you as well. Build some pressure, if your disciplined enough to have just a little procrastination and not put it off all day long or all year. This helps you to behave in a speedy, efficient, and possibly even more effective, manner. When time is limited, we have less bandwidth to focus on anything other than the task at hand.
Create a Meaningful Reward System
The third way you can be even more doggedly persistent is to create a meaningful reward system. Now I do mean meaningful. It might be, you get to take a five-minute break once you’ve completed this task that you’re trying to exercise persistence with or on. It might be that you get to do the fun part of your job once you’ve completed the elements of persistence and work on this one less fun part. But create a meaningful reward system. If you do this item or this task, then that allows you to focus your time on something you enjoy better. Maybe you get to coach and develop once you get through all of that reporting. Maybe you get to do all the reporting once you get through all the coaching and development. Your meaningful reward system will be meaningful to you, and that’s what matters. You can be doggedly persistent in this area of leadership, that I think we all know it isn’t always easy, but in my experience, and I hope in yours, in the months to come and now, is ultimately rewarding.
I’m Monica Wofford and this is your Monday Moment, and a little secret.
If you’ve not already subscribed or know people that might benefit from ongoing reinforcement and knowledge in the area of leadership go to www.MondayMoment.com and click that subscribe button and we look forward to welcoming you and those you have the privilege of leading to the Contagious Community.
Monica Wofford, CSP is a celebrated leader who develops future leaders. CEO of Contagious Companies, her firm delivers and designs leadership training for managers who’ve been promoted, but not prepared, and the leaders who promoted them. Author of Contagious Leadership and Make Difficult People Disappear, Monica and members of the Contagious team may be reached at www.ContagiousCompanies.com, www.MonicaWofford.com or by calling 1-866-382-0121.
