As a leader, one of the things expected of you is to be able to make that critical decision of whether to continue to pursue an initiative, or whether to cut your losses and move on to something else. While this skill is key to your ability to succeed at leadership, many leaders nonetheless struggle with making this evaluation about themselves in their current role. Of whether they should continue in their current role, or whether it’s time to pursue other opportunities that would allow them to achieve and be that leader they want to be. It’s a challenge that I explore in this latest edition of “Leadership Espresso Shot” on my leadership podcast.
More specifically, I share 4 questions that any leader at any stage of their career can use to evaluate whether they’re still able to accomplish what they set out to achieve when taking on this leadership role, what’s holding them back from meeting their goals, and whether these factors are a good indication that it might be best to move on to a new role and allow someone else the chance to see if they can move things forward.
Even if you’re not contemplating whether you’ve done all you can do in your current role, these four questions can still help give you some perspective on how things are going and what things you should look out for going ahead to ensure you are in fact able to be the kind of leader your employees need to succeed.
So I hope you’ll check this episode out, and maybe even bookmark it for a future listen when that time inevitably comes when you’ll be look outwards from your role for new opportunities to continue to learn and grow.
Thank you for your post and podcast. Very interesting topic and questions you are bringing up in this post and leadership espresso shot. I think all 4 questions relates to a reality existing in any organization and to many individuals sitting on leadership chairs. I think the attitude towards change and risk taking plays an important role in preventing people to take the step of changing jobs. Compensation is another important area to consider. Some leaders would want to let go their compensation and benefits even though they feel miserable in their jobs. Thanks again for such insightful post.
Thanks Adam; I’m glad you enjoyed this instalment in my podcast. That’s a great point you bring up about compensation and the science definitely backs you up. Several studies looking into sustaining long-term motivation has proven that external factors like compensation keep us motivated only over the short term. And that also serves as another reason why it’s important for leaders to ask themselves the four questions I go through in this episode.
Again, thanks for the kind words and for sharing your insights on this; appreciate it.
Thank you very much for this podcast. I completely agree with you that these 4 questions can be also used not from the perspective if it´s time to move on, but as a fresh reminder as a leaders of 4 common sense we should be doing frequently to strength our team:
1.- Putting enough effort into having one-on-one conversations with our team members to listen, develop and help them grow while at the same time properly address any concerns that they may have to make them feel part of the same team and purpose. In other words reduced as much as possible the discontent.
2.- Embrace an environment where you model the right leadership, empower people and celebrate with them when success and committed failures happen in order the team members feel they have fun while keep growing at the same time.
3.- Praise and thanks the contribution to our team members. This is a two-fold purpose, one to recognize the effort and second to remind and cast the common purpose.
4.- What internal opportunities do we create as leaders to allow an organic growth for our people and they feel and see the world of possibilities within the organization.
Thanks again for your insight and for inspiring others to spark the on going learning in our leadership journey.
Hi Luis, thanks for the thoughtful and insightful comment! I completely agree with all four of our points you share here. In fact, I think it adds to what I shared in the episode of my podcast where I discuss why leadership should be hard if we think about what the real purpose of leadership is. Again, thanks for taking the time to share such important insights on leadership. And thanks also for the kind words; I really appreciate it, Luis.