How to find your unique style in Leadership and Life

Posted on April 02, 2024 by Andrea Altier, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

Have you ever challenged yourself to change direction or move yourself in a direction where you need to bring forth your leadership?

If you have, you know that when that happens you enter into multiple processes at the same time. It’s like you are expanding yourself and growing, and you can feel that expansion in your body.

You notice that because you become alert, sharpened, and sometimes it’s even like you focus so much that your vision becomes a bit like a tunnel vision because you are so focused.

And at the same time you are learning new skills, getting to know new people, perhaps you are building a team or taking over a team, perhaps you are starting a new business, and all you want is to deliver value. You want to show for yourself and for the people depending on you that you can do this.

And a part of you wish that you were already there, even though you are very much aware that you are in a process. Right?

Ideally you want to have influence, and be able to influence, and you would want that to happen almost effortlessly.

Except there’s just too much happening at the same time. And on top of that you are finding yourself in a process of trying to figure out who you are in this new situation and who you want to be.

So now, suddenly everything is up in the air, and you need to start sorting, and you need to decide; what do you want to keep and what do you need to let go of.

What old beliefs or stories are still active in you and are not serving you in this new situation? What beliefs will serve and benefit you as you settle into this new direction?

Making the decision to develop your unique leadership style
This is where many of my clients come to me when they are in this situation, and want help to sort. Because some of them share that they look towards others, to see and learn from what others do. I think we all do that, to some extent. But that doesn’t always feel right, and they know that they need to find their own style. It’s just that they are under pressure, and they simply don’t have time to think, and they want change to happen fast, they just don’t know how.

This is a process of discovering who you are and who you want to be while everything is changing around you, and it’s important to you because you want to succeed, you want to maintain a work-life balance, feel good about yourself and enjoy what you are doing at any given time. You want to be able to take vacation and spend time with your loved ones.

How I guide you in developing your unique leadership style

When you come to work with me, what I will do first is to help you take a step back, so you will get some questions from me that serves as a foundation for our work together and in that process you will do a self-assessment.

I will ask you, and you can do this now for yourself, to assess yourself in six dimensions which are;

1. Energy and Balance
2. Goals and Leadership
3. Communication and Vision
4. Growth and Accountability
5. Your brand/identity and your flow
6. Your strategy and your influence.

You can see it as a wheel, a scale or you can see it as a chronological working order where each of these build on the other. I’ll focus on the chronological working order here; for example;

You have just started a new position and you want to develop your presence and influence in the organisation.

Self-Assessment Process

1. Energy
You feel your energy level is good, however you are a bit stressed, so there is also a sense of internal imbalance. You are putting in a lot of energy into your work.

2. Goals
You feel clarity on the organisational goals, but you feel that you need to work on your own goals and your leadership.

You have high expectations towards yourself, and in this case balancing your goals is where you need to focus your leadership and set the expectations towards yourself and the people around you at the right level.

3. Communication
The next is to assess your internal and external communication.

How do you communicate with yourself? are you kind towards yourself and communicate with empathy and care or do you have a strict and demanding communication of yourself?

How does your internal communication affect your external communication? Is it aligned with your personal vision for your future self?

4. Growth
So back to the example of entering a new position, in this situation you need to build relationships, manage different people and situations. Which in some cases can be challenging, for example if you need to handle interpersonal conflicts.

Growth in this perspective is about your psychological and emotional growth, so let’s say you find yourself in a challenging situation, do you have clarity in that moment on what you are experiencing and can you, and will you articulate that?

Do you hold yourself accountable for your own clarity, your own internal clarity of what you accept and do not accept, what you take responsibility for or not in interactions and different situations?

This is where your growth happens.

5. Your Brand/Identity
An your brand/identity is now starting to become clear. It is only when you can manage your energy, goals, communication and growth that you start to get a clear view of who you are.

Once you are here you have a good sense of what helps you stay in a flow state internally and externally, now things are shifting, and starts happening for you and everything starts to feel like flow.

6. Your Strategy
Now you can be more conscious of your strategy and maintain focus on your being, so who are you consciously choosing to be?

This is when you start influencing others without effort. You are becoming solid and grounded with clarity on your boundaries, where you want to go, how you lead yourself and through this influence others, and because of this you create balance for yourself.

The outcome
This is a self-discovery process, where you get to know yourself, it is in the interactions with your surroundings that you can experience any imbalances in your ability to be authentically you and be real in your interactions.

Whenever you hold yourself back, this is valuable information telling you where you need to focus.

When you manage to be your authentic self and have clarity on who you are being, your have developed your unique style, and you will notice that you are now;

- able to create a sense of balance in your surroundings
- You create psychologically safety in your environment
- You are able to build and maintain long-term collaborative relationships
- You are able to transform situations and events through your leadership
- Your customers are happy with you and your team
- You are clear on your mission and vision

First Action Step
- The first step is always awareness.
- Do a self-assesment for each of the six dimensions in chronological order and set your score from 1-10
- Look into each dimension separately and assess what a next step or potentially a 10 could look like for you
- Assess any imbalances, where do you find them and how could you create more balance?

Visualisations/Inner Journeys
Often times I use visualisations/Inner Journeys in this process, because we all have the answers already. That is why I recommend that when you assess the dimensions and potential imbalances; try to meditate on each dimension and see what comes up for you.

Have a journal with you where you can write down your insights. Closing your eyes and focusing inwards for a few minutes can give you access to information that is right there for you and can bring clarity much faster than just thinking about it.

Try it out for yourself, you might be surprised by the clarity and insight you get.

You are whole and complete and do not need to change
I believe that we are all whole and complete, and don’t need to change, that you (and we all) have all the resources we need to grow.

What we need is an awareness, an understanding, and being kind and empathetic towards ourselves to allow growth to happen.

Considering coaching?
If you are considering to work with a coach, I invite you to reach out to me and I will contact you to set up a chemistry call where we will explore your unique challenges, desires and how coaching can help you get there.