Leadership Success: Think Balance Beam Not Mountain Top | #PeopleSkills
by Kate Nasser | 5 Comments »
Leadership Success: The Real Challenge is Balance Not Achievement
Leadership Success: Balance Beam Not Mountain Top. Image by Ben Rogers via Flickr.
Leadership Success: Not Just Mountain Top
For many it is getting to the mountain top. Everyday phrases like, at the top of your game and reach the summit, express what many believe about leadership success.
They focus on initiative and drive which are necessary and valuable. Yet the real challenge in leadership — and life — is balance. Achievement is easier when you have balance.
Leadership Success: Think Balance Beam Not Just Mountain Top
- Consider the greatest challenge for most businesses — managing growth. This is an issue of balance: projections, investment, supply, demand, etc… Yet many continue to act as if they’re still in start-up mode and focus on climbing to the top.
- Consider one of the greatest global challenges of any business — optimizing diverse cultures. This too is about balance. Understanding, embracing, and adapting to all factors that can enhance or topple success.
- Developing high performance teams is about balance. Leaders must get diverse personality types, occupations, ages, and educational levels to work together. In other words, they must help others create balance.
- Engaging employees for ownership, accountability, and commitment, requires balance. Leaders must balance telling and asking. Great leaders know when to do each.
- Balancing humility and signs of outward strength is essential. Too much strength and leaders seem domineering. Too much humility and they seem weak. If you struggle with the idea of humility in leadership, read: Never confuse humility for humiliation.
- In communicating to improve employee engagement and commitment, leaders must balance candor and care. High level leaders often need to add more care to their candor. Front line leaders often need to add more candor to their care.
Key Reminders for Leaders
Balance Does Not Mean Keeping the Status Quo!
Unfortunately, somewhere many have learned that focusing on balance is the same as maintaining the status quo. It isn’t! When you have balance, you can move faster, perform better, and adapt to change more easily — without tumbling down.
Essential list of things to balance for leadership success:
- Intuition and data
- Safety and risk
- Big picture and details
- Creative thinking and critical thinking
- Practicality and inspiration
- Reflective listening and active expression
You can ascend and master the balance beam of leadership success. Develop it throughout your career before you have the title of leader!
From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™
Related Posts:
Moderation Doesn’t Mean Mediocrity!
Leadership Success: 18 Things Respected Well-Liked Leaders Consistently Do
Mountain top image licensed via Istock.com.
Balance beam image by Ben Rogers via Flickr Creative Commons License.
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Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.
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Kate,
I really think that your balance beam analogy is much stronger than the mountain. It seems more realistic. This post was REALLY great! Thanks for sharing it.
Kate
Wonderful post! I am a huge advocate of the balance approach. My team hears me talk about balance on a daily basis. It seems to be such a foriegn concept in todays society. One of the biggest challenges I have faced is helping team members grasp the balance of work and home/family life. Some will work themselves into the ground until they use up all their energy, then have nothing left to give to their family. Some cannot focus on work because of drama in their personal life. The interesting thing is that both situations have the same solution…balance. As always it was a delight to read your insight
Thanks
David
Dear David,
Grateful for your support of this topic. Balance does take effort yet the rewards are so great. It’s actually easy to live and think in the extremes yet it causes so many problems.
So here’s to balance and all its benefits.
Many thanks!!
Kate
[…] Leadership Success: Think Balance Beam Not Just Mountain TopConsider the greatest challenge for most businesses — managing growth. This is an issue of balance: projections, investment, supply, demand, etc… Yet many continue to act as if they’re still in start-up mode and focus on climbing to the top.Consider one of the greatest global challenges of any business — optimizing diverse cultures. This too is about balance. Understanding, embracing, and adapting to all factors that can enhance or topple success.Developing high performance teams is about balance. Leaders must get diverse personality types, occupations, ages, and educational levels to work together.Engaging employees for ownership, accountability, and commitment, requires balance. Leaders must balance telling and asking. Great leaders know when to do each.Balancing humility and signs of outward strength is essential. Too much strength and leaders seem domineering. Too much humility and they seem weak. If you struggle with the idea of humility in leadership, read: Never confuse humility for humiliation. […]
[…] But leadership coach Kate Nasser thinks it’s better to adopt a balance beam framework. For example, the greatest challenge for a business is managing growth. “This is an issue of balance: Projections, investment, supply, demand, etc. Yet many continue to act as if they’re still in start-up mode and focus on climbing to the top,” she writes on her blog. […]