MAJID DABBOUS
Co-Active Training
Institute Workshop
This weekend, I participated in a beautiful, experiential, 3-day leadership workshop with Co-Active Training Institute in Dubai.
Here are 3 great learnings on the concept of 'Leadership', that I want to share with you today:
1) Leadership isn't a position or a title.
Leadership starts with being a leader with yourself - claiming full ownership of your life.
In other words, 'being the captain of your ship and the master of your fate'.
It all starts there, and only then does it spread into your work and personal life.
2) At the heart of leadership is CHOICE.
Our choices as leaders define us. They create our world, which then directly affects us.
So our life experience is a result of our choices - our actions and reactions - that just compound over time.
'Hard choices, easy life.
Easy choices, hard life.'
3) Leadership is a spectrum.
On one hand, there's the reactive end, on the other, the creative end.
When you're in the reactive end, it looks like controlling, dominating, wanting to be right or even blaming others when things go wrong.
There is fear here.
When you're in creative end, there's an unshakeable commitment towards a vision.
There's connecting with others, enrolling them into that vision and empowering them along the way.
Here, there's trust.
Trust in ourselves and in others.
Reflecting on this and relating it to my own journey in consulting, I can see how I was in both ends.
When I first started leading teams, I was in the reactive end.
Insecure, afraid to show weakness, I had to know it all, I was micro-managing and controlling. Draining really ... so much pressure on myself to keep up that 'image'.
With time, I shifted towards being more comfortable with uncertainty, and more importantly, making sure I empower my teams to the fullest.
It wasn't anymore about me being the manager and them being my followers.
It was more of me being a 'Leader in Front', while them being 'Leaders Behind'.
So, where do you find yourself most of the time on this spectrum? and what are you gaining or losing by being there?
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