I have been a leader since the day one of my professional journey. Learning to grow with growth for me has always been trial and error, learning from the falls, slips and recovery on the move, and at a pace of lightning.
So in these last 3 decades & more of business, of failures, successes and learnings, here are 5 things I believe that we, especially women must do as we grow as individuals and as leaders.
- Accept yourself as a Leader
Don’t hesitate to stand tall with chin high and claim to be a leader. You are not a leader because you have a great team, great family, great mentors, great investors, great customers, great anyone or anything but YOU… Acknowledge it with pride…
2. Accept your Mistakes
Who said we can’t make mistakes? Everyone does, so be okay to make mistakes. You do not shy away or be scared of doing mistakes. It is okay to do mistakes, it’s a problem if you don’t do anything fearing you would do it wrong.
3. Correct your Mistakes
Doing mistakes is okay, be fast in accepting you did. Be okay to say you failed, be fast to correct your mistakes, make people you have wronged, realise that you have faulted, that you have corrected yourself and remember you don’t repeat those mistakes. But most important is, be okay if you have done mistakes, don’t punish yourself over what you have done, be proud of how soon you accepted and corrected yourself
4. Take help when you need it
Being a super hero is not about being fearless, it’s about having the fear and still overcoming it to achieve great things. So, be the super heroine you are, overcome your fear of being judged, of being pulled up or of being corrected. Take help the first minute you feel you do not have a solution to a problem you have in hand. Reach out and you will see the kind of help you will get.
5. Be okay to be Emotional
We are not machines, period…. we are humans and over and above, we are women, we are meant to be emotional in everything we do and that is the reason we are a much stronger species compared to any other in this world. So be okay to be emotional, be okay to be called emotional and in fact, be proud to be called emotional… some of the great leaders in this world have been super emotional individuals, btw, if this helps, it’s only if you are emotional is when you go out of the way to make your dreams happen.
So, go lady, let the tears rolling down, for your customers, for your team members, for yourself and for everything… We are Women and yes, we take pride in every bit of us, the beauty, the emotions, the strength and the leadership…
Go be YOU, gal… be the leader you are meant to be….
