Leadership Is A Unicorn

As I plan my week as a strategic leader, preparing to ignite the fire within my employees, co-workers and clients, I’m reminded about how utterly difficult the concept of inspiring leadership can be. Every day we deal with the ups and downs of day to day business, as well as social and personal interactions. It can be so freakin’ draining, and how are we supposed to help others when no one wants to help us!

Courtesy of Sean Ackerman

The thought of awesome and motivating leadership as this mythical unicorn that we quest for constantly is something we can all relate to. We want to be the leader that presents the epiphany of knowledge and experience to our teams, not the textbook, follow the Gant chart or TPS report spouting manager. 

It’s a myth folks; we can’t be perfect all of the time. Even the most well planned and experienced leader has his or her pitfalls. Things happen, an acquisition that doubles a company or forces half the employees to lose their jobs. A market crash or technology change that wipes out an industries relevance in an instant. Things beyond our control. I think of that as the roadblock in the unicorns way. It’s the adversity dragon that stops us from being that glorified and celebrated leader. 

Courtesy of Sean Ackerman

There is only one thing that we can do, every day to reach that path of leadership that is sought after, and it’s easy. 

You gotta slay the dragon! Duh!

• The car breaks down on the way to the office, then pool your resources, call into your meetings remotely and delegate some onsite duties!
• Your largest client leaves you for a few pennies, then double your efforts on their peers, focus your energies on 3-4 smaller clients, and learn to minimize your risk!
• Your peer in the organization that drains the lifeforce out of the group, you then focus your energies on the positive accomplishments of the team and banish their negative vibe with an army of positive ones!

You get my point, you can always build off of your negative events that happen in our lives. The choice that you make when you decide to face that dragon head on, that’s what makes you a distinguishable and memorable leader. 

Look that fire breathing blowhard of fear and adversity in the face and politely tell it, ” Not today, I got this”.

You can touch the unicorn’s horn, but you have to reach out for it first. It’s not easy and it takes confidence and practice.

While you might get burned along the way, remember what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, (and because I know we can us a soundtrack of our lives you can insert Kelly Clarkson’s, “What Doesn’t Kill You”, or Metallica’s, “Broken, Beaten and Scarred” here).

I’ll see you here soon for more insight on slaying that dragon.

By the way in case you haven’t signed up, join my email list and get my free ebook Leading Yourself: 10 Ways Successful People Do It! Click here to enter and grab it!