Leadership Skills

“In today’s Transformational Tuesday’s post I’m going to share an effective leadership hack. This hack will help you defeat the biggest enemy you have in fulfilling your potential as a leader.

That Enemy is…your ego.

We could debate about whether egoless leadership is a myth or something that is actually possible. I’d rather spend our time on a way to shift your mindset when your ego becomes a problem.

Keeping your ego in check and shifting to an effective leadership mindset will save you a lot of time leading people.

This leadership hack is actually an ancient wisdom aphorism. Aphorism is a word meaning a concise observation that contains a general truth. Here is the aphorism you can use to change your mindset out of ego…

“Within the great mystery of life all our equal.”

This aphorism from ancient wisdom is used to remember humility and that life is an infinite mystery. When each and everyone of us stands before life’s awe inspiring totality we are all equal. To use this truth as a leader first let’s discuss the ego and then get to how to use this aphorism as a leadership hack.

It’s incredible and a cosmic joke and therefore often humorous…how many problems the ego creates for us. Your ego seeks to have everything in the entire world revolve around you or be about you. As result it often alienates people and creates an ego response within them. Often this response is to knock you down in some fashion.

Your ego also makes you take everything personally. This makes you miserable, creating drama and wasting an enormous amount of time. To put your ego aside and use this mindset hack you need to first identify how your ego takes over your thoughts.

Here’s a brief list of possibilities:

Whatever thought processes for you that are self centered, or lead to being self centered, you need to become aware of them through an honest self-assessment. Enlisting a trusted ally with this self-assessment to help you see yourself can be very helpful.

Once you know your triggers for moving into ego based thought…which often leads to egocentric action, you can use them as triggers to shift to the realization…

“Within the great mystery of life all our equal.”

Your going to live, die and do your best in-between just like everyone else. Your best will be much better and create more opportunity for you and those you lead if you know yourself, your propensity to go into ego, and use it to remember immediately, “Within the great mystery of life all our equal.”

How does your ego negatively impact your leadership?

Until next time…Lead with a Commanding Presence

John”