To lead your team to flourish
My best wishes to you and your loved ones for 2024 and I hope that it’s your best year ever.
As you commit to bring about new possibilities in 2024, I invite you make it the Year of the Team. As the leader, be open to experiment in new and better ways to access more of the team’s collective capacity and capabilities.
However, to lead the team to flourish, you first need to allow yourself to flourish.
This requires you first take care of yourself. If you think this sounds selfish, it’s not. Being selfish is when you take care of yourself at the expense of others. Rather, be self-full so you have more to give and bring to others.
Here are three ways to better care for yourself to better care for others:
Fill your cup - you can’t pour from an empty cup. To fill another’s cup, you first have to fill your own. Here’s what leaders of flourishing teams do to fill their cup:
They create space in their day to reflect and think. They are clear about how their intentions impact their actions.
They make time each day to do what brings them joy – an early morning walk, exercise, or listen to their favourite music.
They express gratitude to others for how they matter in their lives.
Be the invisible hand – the purposefulness of giving is more fulfilling than the pleasure we seek from receiving. As an ‘invisible hand’ focus your energy on creating the conditions for others to flourish. Be the invisible hand that:
Removes barriers to make it easier for others to be and bring more of their best.
Creates opportunities for others to develop and use more of their strengths.
Makes it safe for others to be brave to experiment with new and better ways.
Listen to the voice within you – listen more deeply to your intuition and instincts. Trust the wisdom in what you don’t know you know. As the author John O’Donohue, once wrote in his book Anam Cara “there is a voice within you which no-one, not even you, has heard. Give yourself the opportunity of silence and begin to develop your listening in order to hear, deep within you, the music of your spirit.” Your leadership comes through you for others, not from you to others.