Rachel is the APAC CXM Chief Growth Officer and a Sustainability Thought Leader at Dentsu International; EMBA Mentor & Transformation Coach.
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Jim Rohn once said, “Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become,” and “Money is usually attracted, not pursued.”
If Rohn is right, then success and riches are attracted to who you become, not the other way around, which many get wrong.
Who Are You Becoming?
When was the last time you remember yourself in your best state—alive and experiencing a full mind, heart and body awareness? What was the situation that allowed or empowered you to be at your best self, and how did that feel? Can you recall your best self at that moment? Consider when, who and how you bring out your best. Try to do the same for your worst self.
Now, if you really want to reach your best self and permit yourself to also shut out the ego that is getting in your way, learn to recognize the separation between your best self and your worst self. When your best self arises, encourage or praise it. When your worst self shows up, try to silence it. We’ve created a bunch of internal monsters over the years that defile us; they are the showstoppers for growth. It is also interesting when we learn to hear our own voices and how we express that to others. We will gradually learn how they are not serving us. So don’t let them rob you of your best.
First, learn to be completely honest with yourself and allow vulnerability within and with those you trust. Here, the relationship with yourself is an important foundation to start. You want to put yourself in a position to empower yourself to discover more within, gradually learning self-mastery to optimize good habits and discipline to unleash your superpowers. This is particularly critical not just at an individual level for personal development, but at a systemic level for leadership development.
MORE FOR YOU
Self-leadership is important. You cannot lead others or have sustainable followership if you don’t have the self-mastery to lead by example with humility. Words are cheap. Actions count much more. Besides making it real for self and others, wise leaders have the inner-sage ability to activate wisdom using their sights—more importantly, “insights” (i.e., with the complete internal alignment of the mental, physical and spiritual senses). This allows clarity for better judgment on critical decisions. Self-mastery and true people leadership is a personal development journey. Are you taking ownership?
Who Do You Serve?
What are the choices you would make and what action plan would you take to level up as a leader of the future?
I love Bobby Knight’s wisdom in coaching the best of the Olympians. He says: “The key is not the will to win, everyone has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.”
The world is going through historically redefining moments on all fronts, including an outcry for leadership that saves, serves and uplifts from the chaos and vulnerability. We need pivotal, agile and righteous leaders with good virtue in clear conscience serving for the good and wellness of sustainable humanity and workforce. Essentially, progressing in tandem to drive transformation, innovation for the future and sustainable growth.
In my last article, I highlighted why nonlinear growth is the next leadership transformation to address the widening gap between human’s linear progression and technology’s exponential growth. Leaders who are self-serving or serving merely for capitalism, and who are not evolving to be purpose-driven for the long haul, will quickly lose the trust of their people, partners and clients. These types of leaders are disconnected, irrelevant and will be outplaced. The world is on a great shift, so let’s be awakened.
Leaders Of The Future
Business leaders are becoming aware of the fact that our economic systems are not delivering progress for society. In many regions and sectors, these systems have led to negative outcomes with unintended consequences for society and the environment. It is no longer serving humanity’s progress. Leadership development must therefore support businesses to reframe their purpose, strategy and approach to value creation and achieve change at the pace and scale required. And at a systemic level to reconcile profitability and sustainability.
We do have a concerning gap in business commitment to leadership development that will deliver the necessary capacity of individuals, organizations and wider society to tackle these challenges at scale. Here presents an opportunity for whoever gets it and will solve it for great reward.
A true purpose-driven company plays out its purpose in all aspects of organizational culture, including ways of thinking about values, practices and behaviors, and in how people operate supported by the structure, systems, processes, investments and all strategic decisions. Not forgetting the four D’s: DEI, digital, decarbonized and disruptive innovation.
Who And What Is Your Company ‘Becoming’? Why?
Business boards and their C-suites urgently need to pivot to be more proactive and deliberate in their game plan versus reactive to crises, which could lead to high talent attrition and mediocre business performance. If we lose our best people, we can easily lose the trust of our valuable clients and partners. This will hurt profit and the bottom line and cut growth, period. It doesn’t help with the shift of companies’ performance soon to be evaluated on an ESG scale. Leadership development is the utmost priority now to help pivot if organizations desire to exist and thrive well continually.
We are already at the start of massive change in great wealth transfer (economically) and power transfer (in organizations)—from baby boomers to the next generation of leaders (Gen X, millennial, Gen Z). The next generation of leaders are great coaches of people with unique leadership styles in addition to their tech-front capabilities. They come prepared with game plans that need to pivot, having tolerated the status quo from legacy companies that have not been productive or served value for a while now.
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Author: Rachel Ooi, Forbes Councils Member
