To Lead Others Well, First learn to Lead Yourself
Inner Leadership: Have you ever tried to change a bad habit or develop untapped potential you were sure was waiting deep inside you? Maybe you wanted to be more assertive but found, despite your best efforts, that you kept caving in when you wanted to stand firm. Or maybe you wanted to work more collaboratively with someone but found yourself getting irritated and aggressive. Inner leadership is about making the changes in your life that will bring you the success and satisfaction you yearn for.
Many people try to use will power to make changes in their lives and find it doesn’t work for the same reason diets usually don’t work. Using will power alone to force change violates the inner ecology of our minds which then triggers a counter-reaction. When this happens it seems like an internal saboteur comes alive to force us back into our old patterns of behaviour. This does not mean that will power and motivation aren’t necessary. It means they must be part of a more comprehensive program to properly harness them.
Other people try positive thinking. They keep repeating affirmations such as “Every day and in every way, I am getting better and better” only to find that after a while they are repeating these formulations in a mindless, mechanical way. After a while, they get bored and stop. Positive thinking works too, but only when it is part of a larger plan to master our life story. When we just add a positive punch line to the same old story that we have always been telling ourselves, we get the same old results.
Making sustainable change requires self-awareness, motivation and the courage to master our stories as well as skilful goal setting that take both our current situation and our ecology of mind into account. If you are ready to make the changes that will allow you to be more successful and more satisfied with your life, coaching can support you on your journey.
Greg has a special capacity for coaching that includes an exceptional intuition and the ability to establish a keen, warmhearted connection with his client. He is especially good at offering level-headed but powerful suggestions for changing old, unhelpful ways of acting. For example, among other things he was able to help me redirect my seemingly unshakeable habit of staying up too late every night, a habit acquired as a young doctor and then as an academic always preparing classes. - Ted Stein, M.D., Ph.D.