This Is The Most Important Leadership Test In The World

If you want genuine peace of mind when you go to sleep at night, you first need to figure out what gets you out of bed in the morning. If you want to open doors for others, it's good to show that you can open some for yourself. And, if you desire to rest on your success tomorrow, you doggone well shouldn't be sitting still today.

The most important leadership test in the world is based on your ability to successfully lead yourself first. Can you pass it?

Without even thinking about it, you take this test day in and day out when you demonstrate your willingness - or lack thereof - to effectively manage and lead yourself; to move yourself to action; to pay the price that leadership costs; and to appreciate the value of followership. If you want to lead, start with leading yourself to happiness. Lead yourself to career success and fulfillment. Show that you have the courage and mental fortitude to create your own path and lead your own journey. If you want to lead, you have the power - if you dare own it - to go ahead and do so with your own life first.

The best leaders lead and manage themselves first.

Leaders who cannot manage themselves cannot successfully manage anyone or anything else. Leaders who don't value themselves will not value those they are supposed to lead. Leaders who won't open or change their own minds aren't equipped to guide an organization in this goal either. And leaders - before you try to help other people manage their time, be sure you are successfully managing your own.

Ponder these questions as you consider how well you currently lead yourself.

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• What are you doing to own your power to lead your own life?
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• How do you own your power to improve your circumstances?
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• Are you taking any of these steps to own your career?
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• How do show up in your life? Are you perceived as the high performer or the victim?
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• How do you show that you own your success?
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• What about your mistakes and failures - do you own them as well?

Leadership calls for accountability. It demands unusual levels of discipline. It requires a laser focus on goal accomplishment. It mandates consistently good judgement and thoughtful decision making. If you are motivated to lead because you think it's about taking charge of other people, you have it all wrong. No, no, no. The most important leadership test in the world evaluates how well you can take charge of and lead yourself first.

The best leaders move themselves to action first.

If you can't inspire yourself to get out of your own way and move to action, you aren't likely to inspire struggling employees to do it either. Everyone - including leaders - find it difficult to move and to change. A huge challenge leaders find within themselves and with others is getting motivated to move, to act and to take the steps to create and sustain change.

Successful leaders don't wait around for anything to happen for them. Instead, they are driven - damn near compelled - to achieve their goals and advance their careers. And, if you want it bad enough, you have to muster up all the courage and leadership you have and hustle for it now.

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1. If your goal is to accomplish something, hustle now.
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2. If your goal is to experience something you have never experienced, do something you have never done now.
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3. If your goal is to get a pay raise, ask for it now.
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4. If your goal is to get a promotion, go for it now.
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5. If your goal is to have your boss or colleagues treat you better, explain this to them now.
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6. If you goal is to be happy, drop the things that create misery now.
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7. If your goal is to experience joy, exclude people or things that bring you pain now.
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8. If your goal is to have meaningful relationships, put the effort in and develop them now.
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9. If your goal is to get different, then be different now.
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10. If your goal is to experience "it" - whatever "it" is - make it happen now.

The best leaders pay the price that leadership costs first.

Leaders pay a hefty price to lead. They make sacrifices to lead themselves and to elevate and advance the goals of their teams and organizations. Leaders have to do things (for themselves and for others) that they really don't feel like doing. Don't ever underestimate the true cost of leadership.

Everything has a price, and you have to want to achieve something so badly that you're willing to pay the price to get it. Don't believe it's somehow easier for the leader. Leadership requires difficult choices, and leaders make these choices every single day. It involves going through some fire. It involves consequences we'd rather not experience. It involves consistency, determination, perseverance, persistence and discipline. It requires grit.

The most important leadership test in the world assesses your willingness to first pay the price that leadership costs. Are you prepared to put in the time, money, emotions, risk, courage, change, discomfort, effort, work, study, discipline, focus, etc. that leadership costs? Really, are you?

The best leaders appreciate the value of followership first.

If you are to lead, it will be because others have agreed to follow you. And though these individuals may look to you for guidance, support, advice, mentoring, expertise or supervision, they are not inferior to you, and you won't be superior to them. If you ever start to think otherwise, you'll be wrong, and your leadership will surely fail. Not only do you need to value followers, you need to be prepared to become one yourself. The effective leader is one who knows when it's time to let his team take the lead.

Successful leaders appreciate the limits of their own leadership and know that their followers really do hold a lot of power to elevate or diminish their success. They understand that no matter how many followers they have, they are still human and share all the same vulnerabilities, shortcomings and struggles as other humans.

The most important leadership test in the world contemplates how well you value and appreciate followers. Successful leaders view those who follow them as

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• equals who have their own minds with their own thoughts, ideas and talents.
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• major contributors to the end goal as opposed to replaceable parts to achieving the leader's vision.
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• professionals who add meaningful expertise to the conversation and offer topics worthy of dialogue, debate and discussion.
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• intelligent and thoughtful members of the team who are able to make their own choices.
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• thinkers who have a right to question, to seek understanding and to hold the leader accountable.
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• leaders in their own right; these leaders understand that there can and should be other leaders in the room. They realize and appreciate that they don't have a monopoly on leadership.

How many people do you think would respect a leader if they learned the person doesn't manage or lead his own life well? Sure, part of leadership is about inspiring and influencing others. But if you can't inspire yourself to change and positively influence your own behaviors, you should ask yourself why in the world you would be hankering to do so for others first?