PPB August 2019

LEADER SHIP Your Path To Leadership Effectiveness Mastering four critical elements will help you become the leader you want to be. by Brad Wolff L eadership effectiveness is hindered by having the wrongmindset, but get it right and you can transformyour results. For example, do you believe that the personal and professional aspects of your life are separate and distinct fromeach other? I thought so for many years. I chose to focus my time and energy on professional improvement by enhancingmy technical knowledge and skills, thinking this was my ticket to professional success. But I was wrong. Even thoughmy competency in performingmy job was improving, I was failing in every other area of my life. Specific problems that were sabotaging my success included the following: • A lack of knowledge about my innate characteristics causedme to invest significant time doing work that wasn’t amatch for me. I was frustrated because the job duties didn’t align withmy natural abilities. My work quality and enjoyment were low, and I was delivering subpar results to customers and coworkers. • When other people gave me constructive criticism, I would defend my position, insisting they were wrong. This harmed my ability to listen, learn and improve. Constructive criticism is a crucial element for improvement, but my defensiveness stifled my growth and discouraged others frommaking an effort to help me. • My lack of self-awareness kept me stuck in destructive habits, and ignoring what others were saying to me caused me to say and do things that alienated them. By being unaware and living in denial of ineffective patterns of thought and behavior, my professional development was halted. • I allowed my ego and emotions to drive my behavior and often regretted the resulting consequences. When strong emotions intervened, they took control of my actions. I found that acting out of anger, pride, jealousy and fear consistently led to poor results at work and fractured relationships in my life. 62 | AUGUST 2019 | THINK