When I think of leadership, I can’t help but think about how we as women and men often move from one size clothing to another.
The natural evolution is that we are not that stick-figure size we were in our teenage years, particularly post-childbearing, marrying, moving on in our careers, and then settling into our busy lives.
As we age exponentially, our sizes change too. Whether we realize it or not our leadership skills grow with us as well. It starts small (S), leading our friends in girl/boy scouts, classmates, or guiding a younger sibling towards success with their homework. Before we know it, we’ve moved on the medium (M) range where we perhaps guide our own children through the hard navigation of life, mentor a friend, become class-president, or even become PTA president. At a later date, it’s natural to go on to large (L) leadership where we lead a team of co-workers or perhaps manage our own employees in our small businesses. Without blinking an eye, the natural transition to extra-large leadership (XL) happens when we serve as board of directors for organizations or as CEOs of companies (even our own “grown-up” company that we started at the kitchen table so long ago).
The sky’s the limit when we flourish and work hard towards achieving our goals. Success becomes inevitable. Sure there are some stumbling blocks along the way. Life wouldn’t be life without them, however, we’ve all had our leaders and mentors to help us along the way.
What’s important here is never to take your own leadership skills for granted. Don’t get so busy in your life that you forget the greatness within you and how exactly that came about. Think back on the time where you were your group’s leader with that class group assignment and then take a look at yourself sitting in that large board room sharing ideas and brainstorming problems with other successful women and men.
We’ve become who we are and “grown” into ourselves as a direct result of learning from those who took the time to lead us and emulating those learned leadership skills to move towards success. Just as we have learned from our leaders, we must always remember to take someone else’s hand and bring out the leader in them so that, in turn, they will pass that ability on as well. Each one of us possess excellent leadership skills we just have to take the time to reflect on that. Instead of running out of that coffee shop, coffee in hand, sit down even for 15 minutes, smell, taste, listen (to that nice music they’re playing), and think.
Take some time for yourself and really think about YOU! (XL) or Excel doesn’t sound that bad, now does it?
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Marianne Libretto, L.M.H.C. is a New York State licensed mental health counselor in private practice. She is president of BioLogical Wellness, a high-tech health and wellness consulting company and founder of the Emotional Intelligence Success Academy where she coaches success principles to individuals, small businesses, and corporations. She serves on the Board of Directors for Long Island Women’s Agenda, the largest coalitions of women’s organizations on Long Island, as Vice President of the Health Committee.
Enjoyed your post, Marianne. Many truths in it.
Great article, very inspirational. Marianne has been very helpful in identifying a number of coaching skills and strategies that helped the Admissions Office staff at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.