"LEADERSHIP, LIKE SWIMMING, CANNOT BE LEARNED BY READING ABOUT IT." - HENRY MINTZBERG  

There is no shortage of leadership resources online, in print and live, including talks, conferences and workshops. So why is it so challenging to develop as a leader? The secret is intentional practice. 

Practice little things each day. Have one thing you are focusing on practicing or noticing, not 30 things. Once a week, reflect on your development plan and pick one thing to be intentional about practicing. Just one. One of the things important to practice is choosing your mindset. Are you reacting to problems to make them go away or focusing more on what you want to create? It’s a small but important nuance to practice.

I often find myself suggesting to my executive coaching clients to read their leadership development plan over, once a week, and then choose one thing they would like to intentionally practice over the week ahead. Next week, they can choose the same focused practice or a new one, it doesn’t matter what they choose as long as they make a conscious choice to practice one thing. Not ten, not five, but one.

Five areas of leadership practice to consider:

Relationships

• Delegating and coaching your team members to take on stretch assignments

• Talking to peers internally and externally to understand their business issues and how they are tackling them to gain new perspectives and inspiration for the challenges and opportunities in front of you

• Bi-weekly or monthly one-to-one meetings with each team member to check in on their development, build your relationship and check in on their development

Self-Awareness

• Strategies for composure and calm to ensure your ability to respond with choice and clarity in difficult situations in the future

• Boundaries for yourself and your team to balance the demands of a challenging role with a fulfilling personal life and the ability to recharge, even if it sometimes creates disappointment in others

• Acknowledging what you say no to for every yes you commit to 

Courageous Authenticity

• Giving feedback both reinforcing and course corrective to support those around you in their growth

• Speaking up to share your ideas or challenge others’ thinking with provocative questions

• Letting go of being right and asking more questions than you provide answers

• Taking small steps into discomfort and vulnerability, trusting that you’ll have the tools and resources to find your way through no matter what happens. This may be challenging conversations, making uncertain decisions, sharing innovative, controversial ideas and much more.

Systems Thinking

• Making yourself less needed by the team and the organization in your current role. This practice will allow you a new space to add more strategic value without leaving a vacuum behind you that disrupts your team and the business.

• Setting aside strategic thinking time weekly. Start with an hour or two. In that time, read 20 minutes of the articles you have saved to read at a later time or a chapter in a book on leadership, strategy or an important topic to prime your thinking. Next, have an agenda of 1-5 strategic projects that are important, but not urgent and spend the rest of your time moving one or more of those projects forward.

Achieving

• Sharing your vision and honing how you talk about your vision for the future with stories to connect with each stakeholder or team member

• Allowing you and your team to arrive at a goal before increasing the goal even when you reach the goal, well before the expected timeline

• Letting go of perfection and defining the level of performance is truly acceptable or “good enough”

Leadership is a practice of developing the mindset, strategies and skills to guide and develop people and processes towards a new future. It doesn’t come from reading books or simply by observing others. It doesn’t come all at once through a single epiphany or act. Leadership comes like any other skill in sports, music, arts or business, it’s developed through intentional practice day by day and week by week. Pick one action or behavior to practice this week and develop a habit of intentionally choosing a practice every week into the future.