Be the Leader You Want To See

Ever heard that phrase ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’?  I did for the first time at a conference for women in 2018.  I was there as the mindset specialist to talk on a panel about winning your inner game (the one in your head).  I nearly fell off my chair when I heard it.

This statement was being made like it was a rule, and the 200 or so women in the audience seemed to be accepting it because someone admirable was making the statement.

It struck me how willing we are as women to take on things like this, leaving them unchallenged.  What I really wanted to do was stand up and say ‘No!  It’s not true.’  I didn’t.  Instead, I made a commitment to doing something about it for more than just the women who sat in the conference room that day.  Fast forward 14 months and I decided to share my message in written form.  And so the idea for ‘Be The Leader You Want To See’ was born.  

My book would be the opposite of that awful phrase – it would empower women to see that they don’t need to wait for a role model to go first; that the leader they have been waiting to see is sitting dormant inside them.  My role was to help them access what they already have, and teach them how to market it to best effect.  No more believing in one’s inadequacies or deficiencies.  No more believing that we need more experience or qualifications to take the lead.  

I wanted to stop the hun¬dreds of thousands of women who are capable and brilliant from getting in their own way. To stop believing that having a successful and fulfilling career that truly makes an impact requires them to compromise who they are and what they want.

You have everything you need right now to be the leader you want to see.  The reason you haven’t seen that leader in the workplace yet is because it’s you.

I’ve worked with hundreds of women just like you, who entertain lofty thoughts, but get dragged back into the weeds when they wonder how they have been working this hard for so long, and yet feel that effort has not brought them the career they’d love. The answer is that you have committed your think¬ing and your time to things that don’t move your needle. Painful to hear perhaps, but a relief when I tell you how you can apply your efforts in a more tar¬geted fashion, which will not only help your career surge, but will create more connection than ever in your relationships.

“Contrary to common belief, getting to the top of your game doesn’t have to spell personal sacrifice. In this new age, the person who is the most connected and balanced personally is the one who will profit professionally.”

In every coaching conversation I have the same concerns come up: fear of failure, a confusion about which personality traits, if any, should be visible at work, persistent self-questioning, fear of judgement and impostor syndrome. 

As long as we pay attention to the areas in which we are lacking, the less focus we put on leveraging what’s brilliant about us.  This won’t inspire anyone; including you.

You must set the tone for all the other men and women who look up to you: the people in your organisation, your family members, even people who haven’t been born yet. You can’t wait any longer – you need to lead now. There are people watching you, following your lead, and if you play small, you are encouraging them to stay small, too. 

I worked myself into the ground because I thought my career was the most important thing in my life. In reality, I was using it as a mechanism to help me believe that I was good enough. After many years of waiting to be recognised and gifted a big job, I said, ‘No more’. I looked at how I was spending my time, took a truthful deep dive into how little my efforts seemed to be paying off, and I got off the corporate ladder. Having trained as a coach in 2005, I finally set up my coaching business in 2014 and I haven’t looked back. I didn’t have self-awareness, courage or an understanding of my personal influence back then, but I do now. 

Here’s what I know: you don’t have to take radical steps and change your career or your life to start creating fulfilment, but you do need to take an honest and loving look at yourself before you will be in a position to genuinely lead other people effectively.

I believe the simplest to understand and easiest way to implement this process is my ABC model.  This is laid out in ‘Be the Leader You Want To See’.

Awareness 

This is where you look at how you have been showing up and where you have been spending your time and ask why.  What is it all for?  This will expose and address all the areas where you are being limited and allowing your talents to be capped.  You may be tempted to settle into these patterns.  That is not what a good leader does.  A leader looks impartially at “what is”, asks themselves if that is a good enough standard to live by, and then makes a decision to change what isn’t working.

Bravery 

I don’t believe that growth requires massive leaps of faith.  I don’t buy into magic only happening outside of your comfort zone.  Instead, I think that if you nudge the edges of that comfort zone consistently enough it expands.  The level of bravery that I am talking about is aligned with nervous excitement, not terror.  It means that you only need one win under you belt before you are curious enough to see what the next brave act will generate.

Contribution 

When you are consistently intentional about growing your self-awareness and bravery, you can make an unfathomable contribution to your own fulfilment as a leader, whether you think your current job is the one for you or not. This is about creating a new perspective for your personal and professional future before the circumstances show up. It is about how you make an impact with your personal leadership. All the time you fear you have wasted, and all the pigeonholes you believe you are in, they all count.  It’s time to be tactical about how to leverage all of your experience

Maybe you know what to do now.  Or maybe you want to invest in the price of a book; a guide for how to play a much bigger game with what you already have.  It all starts with you –you’re the only factor in your career fully under your control. Show others how great they can be by being the best version of you.

Susie Ramroop’s book ‘Be the Leader You Want To See’ is available now through all Amazon sites.

Author: Susie Ramroop
Copy Editor: Kathryn Nenning, Proofreader and Copy Editor, PWN Global
Date: July 2020