Be Yourself, Only More so

Double down on your true north

When we move into management and leadership roles, we tend to think we need to adjust our personality to be more hardcore and put on our game face. The best way to be comfortable in roles of increasing responsibility is to rely on the core of our authentic selves.

In many ways running a business engages a set of activities you perform regularly in your private life. How these activities have impacted you and how you react to and interact with them, will provide you with a deep understanding about what is effective and important to you, and what is not.

By taking stock of your personality and predispositions, you can develop a business persona and set of operating habits that are in line with your innate strengths, interests and preferences.

Model your management vision on what you already know about yourself and not on some abstract idea of a business executive.

As you go through this self-assessment there may be traits and behavior patterns you may want to change in order to be more effective. Look at developing management skills and knowledge as ways to impress your personal stamp on the world in an effective and beneficial way, not as an oblique strategy to impress others with your success and wealth.

Be Who You Are

Here is some articulate advice from folks who have worked hard at living from core principles.

Get in touch with your authentic style

Managing your daily life has prepared you to comprehend all the aspects of management and leadership. And working on business management skills will help you better manage your daily life. This can be a virtuous cycle.

Who you are as a business person need not be a separate identity from the one you already have developed. Yet we need to commit to a personal development process because we are taking on expanded responsibilities and expanding the scope of those around us who we influence directly and indirectly. Our actions and the consequences of those actions will affect others and in some cases profoundly.

Find a quiet place and take the time for deep listening and sensing the future that wants to emerge. And listen for cues of what person you need to be.