What kind of leader do you want to be?

Leaders come in all shapes and sizes. They can be found in all types of places. Do you want to be liked? Or feared? Or respected? Known as a taskmaster? Or easygoing? There are no wrong answers here but it’s a simple question with a very complex answer. 

After over 24 years leading teams in the Army and in my retired life, I have been led by a wide variety of leaders, good and bad. I myself have led small teams and huge organizations spread across wide areas here in the US and abroad. Regardless of who or where or when, we found the most success when leading from a positive mindset rather than out of fear, stress, or anxiety. 

When I was much younger, I led by yelling and demanding my way was the only way. I was leading from a negative mindset and while it was often effective, it only yielded short term gains. As I grew and matured, I came to understand that a leader’s long term success depended upon things like empathy, confidence, and trust. You can’t develop these attributes through yelling demands and walking away. You can only develop these critical leadership tools through building a strong foundation of mental fitness.

Mental fitness is your capacity to manage your day to day challenges through a positive rather than a negative mindset. Our brains are wired to survive. We have voices in our head that have served us well but as we get older these voices start to work against us after years of relying on them too much. We call these voices Saboteurs and they greatly inhibit our ability to tap into the most important qualities and attributes of effective leadership.

Leading through our Saboteurs will bring resentment rather than gratitude. It will bring skepticism instead of trust and compliance but not commitment. 

What if I told you there was a better way to lead? 

What if I told you that you could lead through a positive mindset that would dramatically improve not only your performance but that of those you lead? 

So I’ll ask you again, what kind of leader do you want to be? How you define your future self is up to you but you can’t get there without a solid foundation of mental fitness built through consistent daily habit formation.