It can be tough and lonely at the top. Every day presents with new challenges and demands. Businesses try to keep up with external and internal pressures on a daily basis.
Products and services need to get out into the marketplace regularly and consistently for revenue to come in the door. But in today’s busy corporate environment there is almost always a human capital cost that goes with this.

As a manager and/or leader in a business, it falls on your shoulders to manage that cost.

Whether your business is growing or contracting, it is becoming harder and harder to stay in touch with the impact on the human resources in your company. It seems as though you’re always being pushed to ask your team to give more. “Doing more with less” is the new business efficiency dividend, right? As their leader, you want to minimise the impact on those in your charge, so you stretch yourself thinly to reduce the load on them as much as possible.

You need to be at the top of your game to be able to achieve the goals of your organisation. The problem is, current conditions and age-old ways of doing things simply don’t cut it anymore. Deep down inside you know that something has to give. You know that the way you’re living isn’t working and that something has to change.  But you’re too afraid to think about it because of what that might mean.

Plus, there’s the extra pressure that’s added by what you’re seeing around you in the world of social media. It seems like everyone you know constantly has fabulous and exciting news to share: the new job, the great account they’ve landed, the fantastic promotion, the new car they’ve bought, the overseas holiday they’re on … and the list goes on.

You see these things and use them as a yardstick for comparing those fabulous lives against your own, and often find your achievements sadly lacking. It also seems as though you’re falling behind your peers and that your status gauge is reading more like a failure than success.

How do I know this?

Well, I perfected living in this environment. To the outside world I had everything, but in the privacy of my own mind, I was terrified every single second of every single day. I lived in fear that I would be outed as a fraud – that someone would point their finger at me, and everyone would know that I wasn’t successful and that I wasn’t worthy of my job.

In fact, I was so terrified that someone would find out that I wasn’t perfect that I became a puppet. My position titles were towards the top of the food chain and although I was managing people and operations on a day-to- day basis, I wasn’t leading them. I gave so much of myself that I became completely lost. I moved through every day on autopilot, reacting to everything around me. I took on the responsibility for things that weren’t mine to own – all the while making sure that everyone else was OK – and giving more of myself than I had to give. I gave and I gave and I gave … until there was nothing left in the tank. And then I found a way to give more.

I wasn’t leading anyone or anything anywhere. I was simply walking at the head of the pack.

In fact, what I was really doing was following from the front. Because I was so lost as to who I was, I spent my days hiding behind a façade of calm whilst ‘walking the talk’ of others around me. I would refer to others for their opinion before making any decisions and eventually found myself carrying out the orders of others rather than thinking for myself. Then I would go home, work until late before spending my ‘sleep time’ stressing over every potential scenario of the day to come.

Sound familiar?

Here’s what you need to know. If you want to be a leader you must first remember who you are. You need to be present and connected with yourself. You must also know where your boundaries and learn to defend them ruthlessly.

Here are a few things that can help you to lead in a different way:

• Learn from the people who teach you to learn from yourself. Our society currently teaches us to ‘idolise’ and ‘follow’ others, but all this does is turn us into blind followers. When we try to emulate our lives on the basis of someone else’s, we automatically walk their path in life, rather than our own.

Find the people who will teach you how to find your own path. Once you know how to find your path, you will easily be able to teach your team how to find theirs.

•  Understand how your energy is regenerated. One of the reasons we’re so tired and exhausted is that we’ve never been taught the importance of recharging our batteries. And we’re all a bit different, so the recharging process is bound to be unique … to you.

Find the things in your life that give you energy, and make sure you do at least one of them every day.

• Always look for the simple path. Our lives are so complex. We’re force fed ‘dramality’ as a normal part of life. Emotion is almost always entangled with the real story, and it’s hard to find the truth in amongst all the noise.

When you separate the emotion from a situation, it is always easier to find a simple solution. A simple solution gives you an easy way forward. A pathway that is less draining, requires less energy and where less time is wasted – all big ticks!

If you want to effectively nurture and inspire your team, you must first learn to nurture and inspire yourself. To do that with any hope of it being sustainable for the long term, you absolutely need to know who you are.

Then, once you know who you are, you can strongly and confidently step into the role of ‘leader’ and empower them through passing on your knowledge.

Now is the time to take control and step forward. All it takes to move from following at the front to being a leader is to learn to think a little bit differently.

Where will your next step be taken?

Want more info? There are loads of tips and tricks on living and thinking differently in my book ‘Keep It Super Simple’ 

Want to chat? Email me on info@sheiqlife.com or call me on +61 438 624 868 and we’ll set up a time!

Bronwen Sciortino is a Simplicity Expert, Professional Speaker and the author of Keep It Super Simple – Tips from a Recovering Perfectionist. Join the conversation by subscribing to the tribe at www.sheiqlife.com; Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.