Confidence, Not Arrogance
This week, I have read through the first four chapters of Nine Figure Mindset: How to Go from Zero to Over $100 Million in Net Worth by Brandon Dawson. So far, the book chronicles Dawson’s own professional career journey, highlighting the humbling process he underwent when he realized his shrewd sales and business aptitude did not make up for his lack of leadership skills necessary to be an effective leader, not just a driver of business activities. Through these first four chapters, he details his humbling lessons learned regarding the importance of the soft skills of leadership and how to cultivate the right viewpoint on people who work for you to help achieve your lofty goals.
Some valuable tidbits from Dawson:
What we think is who we are and what we do.
You must be humble enough to know you cannot do everything.
You must have confidence – but acknowledge the distinct difference between confidence and arrogance. Confidence is believing in yourself; arrogance is believing in ONLY yourself. It is imperative for leaders to believe in people beyond just themselves. Leaders should aspire daily to be what their team needs them to be to ensure everyone operates at their highest and best capacity.
As leaders, we must put ourselves in the position to believe in others and thus make our leadership about others. Here are three things we can do that allow us to be in the mindset of having confidence, but not arrogance:
Leadership is all about relationships. Without your people, you are not leading. And if you call yourself a “leader,” that means people are following you. People will only follow you if they respect you and believe you care for them and value them. The necessity to nurture and develop relationships with those you lead is the inherent task of effective leadership.
Leaders ensure everyone wins. If you experience a win as a team, every individual on the team should also feel that win. Progress in your business should translate to progress in the lives of each individual on your team as well. Ensure you understand what a “win” would look and feel like in the lives of each of your employees. If you are helping them live a worthwhile life, they will “win” when they come to work for you each day.
Leaders develop others. Dawson explains that once you’ve mastered a skill, you should teach that skill to your team, and then teach them how to teach that skill to their own teams. Dawson refers to this as a “multiplier effect,” creating mastery all throughout your organization. And when you have mastery all throughout your organization, you will experience growth very quickly. Your team will begin to lead itself and others to growth. The development of your workforce increases production, retention, and the sense of employee fulfillment. This has the bonus effect of developing a sense of humble confidence – not arrogance – in your workforce.
When you make your leadership journey consistently about others, you will grow a cohesive and productive team, not just a bunch of individuals or subordinate servants. When you are leading that type of team, it will steadily grow because everyone will see their own future tied to the future of the team.
Written by Schuyler Williamson
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God Bless!
~ Schuyler Williamson