Tag: attitude-quotes, balanced-life, benchmarking

The principles that guide your decisions as a leader must not be contradictory to your personal values. Your personal values must lay the strong foundation on which you build your leadership tenets. In becoming a principle-centred leader, these leadership values become your guiding principles and lenses for decision making.

There is need for clarity on what your leadership role stands for and the kind of unwavering and unstoppable beliefs required. These beliefs must not be deterred by current circumstances and conditions. They must become your source of internal strength and inspiration, especially during trying times. How strong, positive and empowering is your belief system as a leader?

Principle-centred leadership, consistent leadership, stewardship and servant leadership are all values-driven. Always go back to reflect on your beliefs and values as you go about your leadership responsibilities.

When you become aware of the need to practice servant leadership, to act as a faithful steward and exercise good personal governance – the challenge is to align these three and ensure they fit in with your defined leadership vision, mission and values. If there is no congruence, then leadership effectiveness will be compromised because the likelihood of not practicing these sound principles will be very high.

Leadership is a privilege to serve and make a difference. Take care of what belongs to another as if it were your own. Be accountable to others or to another because you realize you are not a master. Be considerate of those you serve because they, not you, perceive the difference you are or you are not making, in their lives.

The principles of stewardship and servant leadership challenge you to look at leadership differently. Consider these values.

Leadership excellence means that you must be accepted as a leader, not forcing yourself upon those you lead. Outside of formal authority, it takes trust for people to accept your leadership. Proven consistent leadership choices and results will earn you invaluable points of trust.

Consistency in leadership means everyone knows what to expect from you or in dealing with you. It is the quality that draws respect and value towards a leadership brand. This also means you have the discipline to stick to your principles and values regardless of challenges or consequences, and you prove this over a long period of time.

Your leadership principles give that unique character to your leadership brand. When all your responses, decisions, choices and leadership practices are filtered through your well defined principles, you have automatically connected yourself to making the success of your leadership excellence brand more deliberate.

Two key leadership excellence values worth focusing on separately are being principle-centred and being consistent. The complimentary construction of these leadership fibres can easily be misconstrued for unreasonable stubbornness, yet they form the backbone of strong, effective transformational leadership. In building the legacy advocated for, in leadership excellence brands, you must sharpen the practice of these leadership values in every area of your life.

At a leadership level, there is need to become aware of the realities required to lead and deliver value to people and groups, some who might have values and beliefs that significantly differ from your own. The ability to objectively strike this balance will indicate your level of leadership maturity.

When you have defined your mission, values and attitudes in the context of leadership influence and excellence, you also need to conduct a personal audit, checking how aligned they are to your current leadership practices. Where necessary, begin to make adjustments.