Cultivating True Leadership – Is About Determining What You Want

Written by: Traci Philips, Executive Contributor

Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.

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The recent changes in the world have given us all the opportunity to re-examine and analyze what is important to us: what we are no longer willing to put up with and what is calling us to place more of our time and energy into.

It’s an exciting time and a chance to reset our priorities (and ourselves) by choosing what resonates most deeply with our hearts and what is core to our being. To make progress, it will be crucial for each of us to find what is most true and speaks most directly to what is in integrity with who we are and what we want to accomplish in the years to come.

We can no longer meet our objectives from a heady space of what has been ingrained in us by the outside world and from a place of false identity. If it goes against our true selves, we must learn to cast it off and choose what is in alignment. Hiding who we are and doing things to simply please others and fit in will no longer be an option if we want to thrive – individually and collectively.

In the months and years to come, choices need to be processed through all of our brains – head, heart and gut – and should be ones we can commit to from our inherent identity and supported through healthy discipline, reasoning and boundaries.

This all may mean taking a huge, intentional step out of our comfort zones and into places where we can see and discover what and who we aren’t as people and as leaders. We may need to take a good, hard look in the mirror at patterned beliefs, behaviors and ways of identifying ourselves and others.

It always takes courage and conviction to turn away from the people, places and things that clearly do not serve the person we each choose to be and the direction in which we each choose to go. Shifting unwanted thoughts, patterns, beliefs and behaviors is up to every one of us. You are the only one who can make these decisions for yourself and take the actions necessary to solidify them. If you wait for the world to change in order for you to have your needs met, you are missing the point and a central tenet of true leadership – taking full and complete accountability and responsibility for everything within the life you are experiencing and creating.

This time we are all in is about taking a stand and choosing your path. Leadership is not just about supporting others and putting their needs before your own. If anything, leadership is about modeling what it looks like to position yourself, firmly, in your truth and serve from your heart and what is true to and for you. It’s about showing others what it looks and is like to lead yourself.

Leadership is not about fixing, saving or fighting others’ battles. It’s not teaching others the “right” way to be based on rules of life or lists of values. In fact, leadership, at its foundational core, isn’t about others at all. It’s about being YOU – consistently and completely. By doing this, without apology, you give others permission to do the same.

In order to be truly impactful and authentically valuable in any of your external relationships, it is critical to become sovereign. Until then, you are operating within a model of dependency, reliance, competition and a constant questioning and proving of your “enoughness.”

Right now, we are all being called to get real with what we are hiding about ourselves and why. Instead of continuing to suffer and identify from our wounds, it’s time to address and heal them. Using our traumas as reasons for fight, escape, victimization and bad behavior is getting us nowhere, and must be replaced with building true and lasting awareness, understanding, resilience and solutions. It’s truly time to dig in and lead ourselves, our communities, our nations and our world to a better place.

In all of this, well-intentioned objectives, aims and plans require tangible and realistic action to become established. We must cultivate fertile ground in which our new and promising seeds of truth and higher purpose can germinate and grow.

I believe the currently developing paradigm is all about working together and focusing on encouraging healthy, balanced communities, partnerships and cultures. We cannot do this, however, before we first get right with ourselves and develop, within us, the ability to know our individual place and have the capacity to support the designs of this new paradigm. Otherwise, we risk repeating everything that has been done and created.

Moving forward, our decisions will bear a newly concentrated potency that will affect who we are, what we do, where we go and with whom. At this time, it is important to do our work to be sovereign leaders of our own lives and to do so with intention, grace and curiosity.

Again, true leadership isn’t about how well someone can lead and inspire others, that becomes the result of being able to first know, own and have the courage to show up as who you truly are and lead yourself from this place with clarity and conviction.

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Traci Philips, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine As an Executive Leadership & Performance Strategist, Traci Philips supports visionary business owners and corporate executives to learn and practice better communication, resolution strategies, decision-making, and leading during times of change and when the stakes are high. A three-year stint co-facilitating a men's transformational program for industry leaders incarcerated in Federal Prison taught Traci more than she could ever have learned elsewhere about high-stakes leadership and the cost of bad decision-making. This experience fueled a passion in her to help top leaders learn what they needed to know so they wouldn't end up losing what matters most. Her ultimate goal is to support her clients to live authentically and lead powerfully by creating more awareness about who they are, how they want to be seen, and what legacy they want to leave behind. Traci is the co-host of Eavesdrop in the Moment, a bi-weekly podcast that discusses current trends and leadership. Her book, Looking In: Discover, Define and Align the True Value of Your Life, Leadership and Legacy is helping leaders around the globe increase their confidence and self-identity to meet leadership demands and their personal performance potential.