My passion is to help women become Godly, effective, servant-leaders - whether in a full time ministry situation, as a volunteer serving in ministry or in a leadership role in the workplace.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

My Biggest Leadership Challenge

I love all things leadership. Whether it's practical how-to's or high-minded theories or teaching it or doing it. For profit or non-profit, if it has to do with leadership I'm interested. I love recruiting and staffing, developing talent, building teams, crafting strategies, attacking alignment issues, vision casting, even resolving conflicts - but I've met my match when it comes to one particular area of leadership.
You see when it comes to keeping others energized, engaged and effective; I'm your girl. But when it comes to keeping myself energized, engaged and effective, I stink.
I can't seem to manage my time or my priorities right now. I'm slow to get going in the morning. Then I jump from one project to another for about 3 hours. Then I realize the day is slipping away and I begin to get semi-productive on one or two things. By sundown I'm discouraged because I didn't move more balls forward.
It will help (I hope) when I have clarity on which direction I'm headed in my career/job. But I'm disappointed in myself that I can't seem to get more done when I have so much time on my hands. I am so much more productive when I have very little time on my hands!
I've decided I'm going to apply my leadership principles to myself.
  • Cast a vision for what my future could be.
  • Continue to communicate that vision to myself daily in a variety of ways.
  • Set 3-5 SMART goals for the day, the week, the month.
  • Make a list of actionable steps for each of those goals.
  • Make a list of resources I will need to achieve those goals.
  • Coach myself to take the steps necessary to achieve them.
  • Connect with people who can help me when necessary.
  • Hold myself accountable to mark progress toward my goals.
  • Reward myself for achieving each goal.
  • Reassess each goal that is not achieved on time and come up with a new realistic plan for reaching it.
  • Etc.

It doesn't look so hard when I write it out. I think the problem is that I'm a poor follower of my own leadership!