by Michael Holland
Vince Lombardi, the great football coach, taught his players to “run with complete abandon, and when you get close to the goal, let nothing stop you from getting across.”
Do you believe in your management and leadership skills to a point where you can honestly lead with complete abandon and lead your team to achieve their goals? What can you do today to fully believe that you can lead your team to great success?
In most self-help books, a common theme is utilized wherein you need to visualize your successful state in order to realize success. While the books, tapes, programs differ in how they want to help you obtain this state of nirvana – leadership nirvanain our case – it is evident that pushing yourself to believe that you are a successful leader will help you to be a successful leader.
Start today. . .
- Repeat to yourself 10 times that you are a _______________ leader. Fill in the blank with a word that best describes your leadership nirvana. Here are some suggestions: successful, compassionate, dynamic, consistent, communicative, stable, change agent, patient, strong, leader’s.
- Hit the bookstore – or your bookcase – for a motivating self-help book, tape, or program. Amazon has hundreds of thousands of books listed. Need a recommendation? Here are several from my bookcase:
- The Power of Positive Thinking: 10 Traits for Maximum Results by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale
- The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
- Poke the Box by Seth Godin
- Commit to it. Tell a colleague, a friend, a significant other that you are going to spend the next four weeks focusing on being a more successful leader. Ask them to follow-up with you to see how it’s going.
- Spend 22 minutes writing your Jerry Maguire mission statement.
You can take action and let nothing stand in your way of reaching the goal line or you can choose to accept mediocrity.