Read This If You Think You Don't Have Any Authority
I'm not the supervisor.
I'm not the manager.
I'm not in charge here, so I'll do whatever the boss wants.
Do any of these sound familiar?
If someone promoted me, then I'd have the authority to lead.
Once I've been knighted, then I'll have the nobility to influence others.
Once I've been bequeathed the royal blah, blah, blah . . .
Leadership doesn't come from authority. Some people use authority as though it were, and many people follow as though it were--but that's not what leadership is.
Leadership is assertiveness, not aggressiveness.
People want authority because they want to:
- Control the environment around them.
- Be immune to scrutiny from above.
- Have the freedom to say and do what they really want.
- Influence others.
The strange thing is that this approach will never work.
Let's break these down point by point.
#1 - The environment around you is only partially controlled by you. You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family. You can choose your job but you can't choose your manager. So outside of choosing the people and place you put yourself in, there's not really much you can do. So #1 up there is pretty impractical.
#2 - Haters gonna hate. It doesn't matter if you're the CEO. There's a board member who is watching. And even if you're the board member, your partners, other board members, and the entire rest of the internet are all watching. There's no escape. This approach is futile.
#3 - Volleying off of #2, it's more practical to just act in accordance with your true thoughts and feelings from the start. If you don't, you'll end up resenting yourself. And that is a great way to shut yourself down completely. If you do this, sure, there are people who won't like you. But if you are able to disagree professionally and with dignity, you'll earn respect, which is probably far more valuable than being liked.
#4 - Just because you have the power to tell people what to do doesn't mean they will like or respect you when they do it. If you're truly interested in leadership, not just authority, you'll want your team to follow you into the dark and feel comfortable going there. If you're serious about leadership, you'll want your team to go to war for you. That's a lot harder if they don't like or respect you.
So what do you actually want?
Authority or leadership?
Which is more sustainable or applicable to your long-term goals?
2 Minute Action:
Ask yourself what would happen if you just started?
What would happen if you just spoke your mind about the new branding project to your supervisor?
What would happen if you were honest with your friend about her new boyfriend?
What would happen if you were open and honest with people in a constructive, professional way?
They just might feel like you're trying to help.
They just might trust you a little bit more.
They just might see you in a different light.
It just might open the door to some new opportunities.
It can take 2 minutes of your day to do something a little bit out of your comfort zone.
Today's the day.
Make it happen.
Prove Me Wrong: All Of Life Is A Game Of Luck
You were born with a functional brain.You were born outside of a warzone.You were born as a human being with opposable thumbs.You were born right here, in this century.You were born with the desire to improve yourself and the world.You were born with enough resources to get the traction to start making things happen in your life.You were born with the opportunities to learn social skills.You were born with the opportunities to work for a living.I could keep going, but I think you get the point.You're lucky. I'm lucky. Most of us are lucky.All those thoughts in your head that tell you the opposite aren't considering the whole context.And without getting into the long explanation of the subtle, nuanced interaction between DNA and environment . . . I think we can all appreciate how much luck we had before we even started.
2 Minute Action
Reframe your thoughts for the next 2 minutes.
- What ways have you been successful?
- What gifts have you been given?
- What opportunities do you have?
Reflect on this and it will turn it into positivity and optimism.That optimism will quickly turn it into your fuel for the day.Go get 'em.
You Might Be Delusional, Here’s How
Have you ever heard “if you can believe than you can achieve?”How about “if you can dream it you can do it?”In these cases, belief is actually just a combination of trust and visibility.
Let me explain:
Trust is the reputation you have with yourself for executing things.If you have executed, followed through, and challenged yourself in the past you will trust yourself to do so in the future.Visibility is what you can see about the work to be done ahead.Even if you can’t see the ending, have you done something similar or even just not seen the ending before?How clearly can you define your dream?Example: “disrupt the real estate industry” isn’t clear enough.If you don’t know where you want to go, there’s no way to know when you’ve arrivedBasically . . .
It helps if you know what to do and how to do it.
But even more important is the relationship you have with your own execution and whether or not you trust yourself to follow through or figure out the unknown.
Unbounded belief is delusion.
Delusion is when you believe and believe, with abandon, no matter what the world around them is telling them.So, believing in yourself means having the data log of many, smaller decisions and actions that prove that you are capable of bigger ones.Delusion is when you have no behavioral evidence but believing anyway.See the difference?
2 Minute Action
Do you trust your ability to execute?If so, great! Can you name some projects that would prove this?Having the data in hand will drive up your confidence, today.If you don’t trust yourself, take this time to break your most essential project down into a few chunks you can accomplish this week and ask a good friend of yours to hold you accountable. You’ll need to know a bit about what the final product looks like if you’re going to break it down, too.Example:I have a friend who wrote a check for $1000 and said: “cash this check if I don’t stick to my plan.”People who excel set up their environments to give them the best chance of success.