Leadership Redefined: Discover Your Inner Leader Inside and Outside the Workplace
Contributed by Valia Glytsis
Leadership today demands a very different type of leader. As women, we have been indoctrinated to lead from a place of traditional masculinity – power, aggression, and agenda. Particularly in male-dominated fields, there has been little room for the nuances of a female leader. This is not a judgment of “better” or “worse” – it is simply a fact of how things have been in traditional business scopes and how the Zeitgeist of leadership is under major (and I would argue – necessary) upheaval. What was once sustained by targets, technology, and bottom lines now demands an entirely new leadership toolkit: consciousness, strength management, and intuition.
I want to clarify something of utmost importance. When I say “leadership”, I mean it in the most raw and unfiltered denotation of the word.
Whether you are a CEO leading hundreds or a woman wanting to better lead her own life, leadership is not something external. It is the quintessential essence of you. Living leadership is showing up each day in the world aligned with your purpose and passion. It is coming back to the most authentic part of you where nothing can sway you. When you lead your life and others from this place, change is not only possible, it is guaranteed. A deep shift in you creates a ripple effect that then affects all of the lives that your touch. Idealistic? Maybe. True? Absolutely. Necessary? An undeniable and resounding YES. How? Let’s begin:
1. Live Consciously
At first glance, “live consciously” sounds like a T-shirt slogan. Don’t roll your eyes. When I use the word consciousness, I simply mean awareness. An awareness that helps you understand the differential between you today and your unfiltered potential “you” without the all of the “shoulds” and “what if’s” in your life. We often compare our reality to someone outside of ourselves. That’s not consciousness, that’s ego. We end up feeling insecure and small. Imagine if everything you think, do, or say is a reflection of your core values rather than a reaction from fear or judgment. Consider reflecting on every piece of “you” and simply asking yourself if it’s authentically yours – by choice – or if you’ve taken it on because it was the “right” thing to do for someone else in your life. Living consciously requires you to peel back the layers of your life and (courageously) assess if each layer still belongs there. Simply observe each layer, determine whether or not you still want to take it on, and make a choice. It’s not easy, but it certainly is simple.
2. Manage Your Strength
When you spend some time peeling back the layers of your life and assessing – with complete awareness – which part of you is truly yours, something incredible happens. You come back to a place of strength. You remember skills and gifts that are innately authentic to you. You realize that you’ve forgotten a lot of the most interesting parts of yourself. What to do? Manage your strengths. Our society preaches the opposite; we are programmed to spend indefinite money and time strengthening our weaknesses. That’s one approach – but imagine if you spent that same energy investing in something that is innately you rather than trying to fix something that is outside of you. Do the math. And I use the phrase “manage strength” (instead of strength management) very consciously. I mean actively manage your strengths like you would any other project in your professional life – devote time, energy, resources, and passion. When it comes to our own talents, we take them for granted or simply ignore them because they feel too “easy”. It is with this ease and effortlessness that we can truly differentiate as leaders in our lives and beyond. Rediscover your strengths, harness them, and manage them like nobody’s business.
3. Unleash Your Intuition
Something very interesting happens when we begin living more consciously and managing our strengths… our intuition comes alive again. As women, we are blessed with that gut feeling when something is terribly wrong or amazingly right. This feeling of we-don’t-know-why-we-know-what-we-know is often shunned and silenced, especially professionally.
Ironically, it is this intuition that often separates true leaders from their job descriptions. It is this voice that sets apart those who have the courage to think and act from those who succumb to the fear of “what if”. In Linchpin, Seth Godin shares, “Linchpins leverage something internal, not external, to create a position of power and value.” Are you a cog in the wheel or the linchpin that holds the entire wheel together? Clarity of thought because you are living from a place of awareness, openness, and true strength is a gift – and it’s yours. The choice is also yours – do you lead from this place of value or do you retreat into the comforts of fear?
I have watched countless clients on this journey towards discovering and defining their leadership. And it all starts with a simple yet profoundly powerful place of choice: Choosing to live consciously by determining what parts of us are real and what parts we have unwillingly taken on from others; Choosing to manage innate power by differentiating strengths rather than harping on weaknesses; Choosing to not only listen to our intuition but also lead from that place of inner knowingness. The choice is yours. Leadership today needs you – an authentic, real, and courageous leader. We have an entire world to change.
Valia Glytsis is an executive coach and branding consultant specializing in leadership development. In addition to one-on-one coaching, Valia offers customized leadership training programs and keynote speaking on personal power, intuition in business, and leadership branding. In this low-touch, high-pace digital world, Valia values human-to-human connection, transparent communication, and personal touch above all else.
