Top 3 Tips: Creating a fearless leadership mindset

Good leadership is not just about skills and experience. Research has shown there are 18 leadership competencies to be the most critical behaviours and skill sets for leaders and 11 internal assumptions, run by habits of thought, that limit effectiveness. Most of us want to be great leaders but just don’t know what behaviours are needed to achieve success. We tend to operate on autopilot and have developed thoughts and behaviours over time that have become habit.

If we want better results, we have to break those habits. Here’s how:

Become aware of your thoughts

Knowing whether your thoughts are positive or negative is determined by the language you use. Most of our thinking becomes negative if we are fearful and one great way to move our self from a negative state to a positive one is to reframe our language and create our own positive affirmations. The language we use not only in our thinking but in how we talk to others directs our actions and our behaviours. If we want to implement and sustain a culture of positivity we need to change our language.

Get out of your comfort zone

Fear will naturally show up when there is a change or transition because it means giving up control and embracing the unknown. Most of us tend to be uncomfortable with this but doing the status quo won’t bring about a different outcome so we need to challenge ourselves and get out of our comfort zone. As human beings our natural tendency is to want to be comfortable but we need to recognize it’s not going to change anything. If we want to adopt a new perspective and create a fearless leadership mindset, it means stepping out of our comfort zone to do so. In other words, we need to take a different action if we want to make a change. And this different action usually asks us to step outside our comfort zone of what we are used to.

Letting Go

Knowing something and changing behaviour to do it, are two very different things. We need to understand that the way we’ve always done things may no longer be effective. It takes a lot for people to be comfortable with giving up the way they’ve always done things.

Sometimes we are afraid to change our habits because we worry we might fail. And, sometimes we are in a corporate culture that doesn’t embrace change. However, letting go of existing behaviours and practices that are no longer serving you is critical to your success and the success of the organization. Letting go and creating a new story allows us to operate from a different set of beliefs and habits; patterns of behaviour that serve us better.

Louise Veres is a certified coach with over 25 years of business experience. She is a leadership development coach, facilitator, author, speaker and consultant who helps entrepreneurs and businesses open their eyes to their unseen leadership potential. She is the Founder and Principal at The Centre for Leading and Living – a leadership development coaching and consulting company dedicated to helping individuals, teams and organizations develop an increased sense of competence and fulfillment, gain insight into how they may be limiting these qualities, and discover how to more fully integrate these attributes into their lives and organizations.

Louise is a member of the International Coaching Federation, and graduate of the Coaches Training Institute, holds a degree in Psychology and English and is certified to administer the Leadership Circle 360 Profile and Team Culture Survey.