Leadership Growth and Internal Character
Many times in leadership (and life), what you know takes a back seat to who you are. We can have all the right information and best practices in place, but ultimately it’s our internal make-up or character that determines our ability to execute and ultimately determines our level of success.
John Townsend and Henry Cloud define character as the set of capacities necessary to meet the demands of reality. You can have all the right information, but if you don’t have the internal capacity to execute it, the information does you no good.
Townsend and Cloud further break the character into four primary capacities:
Attachment or Bonding — the ability to feel, identify, and express emotions, and develop deep connections with others.
Separation — the ability to be different and defined, to know what you are for and what you are against, the ability to say no, to tolerate being disliked, and to express anger in a healthy way.
Integration — the ability to acknowledge the good and bad (mediocrity, failure, etc) in yourself and others and still feel lovable and “good enough.” Aware of losses and able to grieve them. Shifting from performance to to valuing close relationships.
Authority — knowing your talents and your purpose; the ability to feel “mutual” with other authority figures, posses a powerful voice and take initiative in your work and community.
For much of my career I had a deficit in Separation (and I’m still a work in progress). I was a classic “people-pleaser” — happy to help and do whatever others needed, but didn’t have a clue of what I actually wanted in many situations or in life in general. This manifested in many leadership problems: unable to set a clear vision, unable to disappoint others, slow decision-making, and poor work-life balance to name a few. It wasn’t until I became aware of this deficit, and then had someone walk me through a process to (slowly) strengthen this part of my character that I began to see growth and enjoy the fruit it has produced.
If you identify struggling in one of these areas, or if there is an area you feel good but would like to be better, I have good news: there is a way to grow and strengthen your internal character. It is a stretching process and doesn’t happen overnight, but real, lasting change is attainable, and I see it first-hand with those I work with.
If you’d like to learn more or experience this growth for yourself, send me a message or schedule a call to connect.