From the course: Leading Yourself

Assessing your leadership needs

From the course: Leading Yourself

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Assessing your leadership needs

- Maybe you have a good boss who gives you a lot of support, or maybe you have a bad or overwhelmed boss who won't, or can't devote time to leadership. Either way, leading yourself starts with assessing your current leadership situation at work. Making a commitment to lead yourself is an important step in your career because it means you are in control of your destiny. Learning how to lead yourself will make you self-sufficient, self-aware and improve your ability to lead others. Now, most bosses fall into one of three camps, good, bad, or well-intended but overwhelmed. Let's talk about what makes a good boss. This boss gives you constructive and helpful feedback or direction and good bosses appreciate someone who can lead themselves. Everyone gets busy, even a good boss, so knowing they don't have to worry about you, makes you even more valuable. When done correctly, leading yourself doesn't mean you're stepping on your boss's toes. It means you're taking things off their plate and making sure they're successful, something every good boss appreciates. But then, there's the bad boss. This is the boss who doesn't give you any feedback. They don't show any interest in your development and they seem to only rely on you when they've messed up. We've all been there. Having a bad boss can be a real challenge. In this situation, leading yourself is critical and you have to do it without a lot of support. The upside is this can leave a lot of white space for you to set your own goals and allow you to take charge of your own development. Just because you have a bad boss, doesn't mean you're alone. You can still find support through peers, mentors, and even in online communities. Finally, there is the overwhelmed boss. This is the most common type of boss and they have good intentions, but there just aren't enough hours in the day for them to give you as much attention as they want to. This boss will likely be relieved at any effort you take to lead yourself. Your lane is wide open to step up to the play. Understanding your current leadership landscape, is fundamental for establishing a plan to lead yourself. If your boss is great at giving feedback, but not so great at helping you set goals, you can learn to set your own goals. If your boss can give a killer pep-talk, but isn't great about performance reviews, you have the opportunity to assess your own performance and create opportunities for future development. Your job is not to change your boss. Your job is to take charge of your development. Regardless of where your boss is on the spectrum, your career will benefit from self-leadership. As we move through this course, think about which of these three camps your boss falls into and how you can leverage them to improve your own leadership.

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