Own Your Future: Prepare for Your Position of Power and Leadership
By: Dianne Durkin
Originally published in the September 2004 Issue of Link & Learn. 
What does it take to prepare yourself for the future that you desire; one that meets your personal and professional needs, and makes the most of your knowledge, skills and experiences? The answer is: Become the leader of your personal company and the name of that company is "My Future."
In order to manage this company effectively to meet its overall goals and objectives, it is important for you as its leader, to use your personal characteristics and qualities to help yourself, and your future, be the best they can be. As a leader of this company you must:
- Be a creative problem solver who uses his/her imagination to reexamine the status quo, visualize new possibilities and ask the magic question, "What if?"
- Initiate and cope with change, by
- Setting new directions for yourself
- Aligning the people around you in the new direction by communicating it clearly and ensuring that these people, business associates, family members, understand and are totally committed to you and your goals
- Motivate and inspire yourself to keep moving in the right direction
A true leader motivates, inspires and energizes people by connecting the vision, the mission and business goals of the organization to individual values and needs. As the leader of "My Future," you need to do the exact same thing. You need to set your vision, your mission, your business and personal goals, and tie those to your individual values and needs. How do you start?
First, it is important to know yourself. Effective leadership is understanding yourself and how you relate to others under both favorable and stressful conditions.
What are your strengths? What are the areas that you need to develop further? Example: Are you analytical? Are you direct? Are you objective? Are you results oriented? Are you imaginative? Creative? Idealistic? Empathetic? In areas for development, do you over analyze? Are you short range focused? Are you judgmental? Are you unrealistic? Are you too impulsive? Are you a procrastinator? Be as honest as you can with the analysis of yourself.
In addition, investigate what your biggest fears are. Example: Are you fearful of losing control? Are you fearful of not being appreciated for all of your efforts? Losing prestige? Do you fear confrontation, criticism, failure, or being proven wrong? By knowing your biggest fears, you can create actions to conquer those fears. Action conquers fear.
Under pressure, do you tend to dictate? Do you tend to attack? Do you tend to avoid the situation or perhaps acquiesce? It is only with a conscious and systematic approach to working on your deficiencies, that you will be able to improve your communication style and set forth to achieve your future goals and objectives.
As a leader in your company, you are going to need to:
- Set your challenge for the future
- Engage the people around you to support you
- Distribute power to people that can assist you
- Celebrate successes with everyone involved in your success
A very wise gentleman once told me,
"Never deny anyone the opportunity to help you."
As leaders managing our own future, we often forget to solicit the help and expertise of others. People want to help. People want to support you. People want to see you succeed. Allow them to do this in every way possible.
As a leader of your own company, you have set your personal direction, aligned yourself around that direction and motivated yourself and others to help you. Now your primary responsibility will be to manage the process. This means that you need to organize yourself. You need to plan and budget accordingly, and you need to solve and cope with unforeseen bumps in the road.
Leadership and management must be used in balance. You are at the point where you have developed the plan, and now you need to take action. In taking action, it is important to develop what I call, a "Life Vision Matrix."
This Life Vision Matrix identifies experiences, interests and achievements throughout our lifetime. In begins in ten-year increments, from the age of 0-10, 11-20, 21-30, etc. I think it is essential for individuals to fill in their experiences, their interests and their achievements for each 10-year increment. In doing so, you will be able to see patterns. If in fact you were part of a Girl Scout troop, at the age of 10 or 11, what role did you play in that capacity? Or, if you were on the soccer team, what role did you play there? What relationships did you have with your siblings? What were some of the major achievements in your growing years? How were those achievements made? What are your primary interests and how have they affected you in the years to follow?
In establishing this Life Matrix through the age of 80 or 100, you will set goals and objectives for all increments of your life. It helps answer those special questions, "Where am I going," and "in what time frame will I get there?"
The last question to ask yourself is,
"What are the guiding principles by which I will achieve my goals?"
This leads to the "Balanced Wheel of Success." As leaders of "My Future," it is important to understand all the departments within this company that are affected, and how these departments need to be balanced in order to achieve your overall goals and objectives.
The areas that I always stress in the Balanced Wheel of Success are:
- Financial goals
- Professional Career goals
- Family goals
- Social goals
- Intellectual and Emotional goals
- Physical (Health and Fitness) goals
- Spiritual goals
- Friendship / Relationship goals
Many of you may have others that you may like to add, or some of these that you would like to delete. Make this your Balanced Wheel of Success, always recognizing adjustments may have to be made.
It would be great if our lives were always planned accordingly and everything happened on plan. We clearly know that this rarely is the case. In business, competitors provide challenges, markets may disappear, or economic crisis may occur. The same will happen in your personal leadership model of "My Future."
It is therefore important to look at your goals and objectives on an annual basis, redefine and clearly re-articulate them to ensure you are on target. In addition, it is important to look at monthly goals and what you plan to achieve each month to reach the overall annual goals. Sometimes these will need to be revised on a six-month basis. Plan and adjust.
The final step to achieving your goals and creating a successful future is to operate with honesty and integrity. "The universe will support you to your level of integrity," is more than a saying - it is the truth!
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Dianne Durkin is president and founder of Loyalty Factor, a training and management consulting firm based in Portsmouth, NH. Loyalty Factor increases corporate productivity and profitability by providing individually tailored programs that enhance employee, customer and brand loyalty. For more information, visit: www.loyaltyfactor.com or call: 603-334-3401.
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