How comfortable are you with being uncomfortable? 

So much of our day-to-day life as leaders doesn’t involve (consciously) making choices about how to be a great leader. We start each day in our natural, normal state, doing what’s comfortable and typical. We lean on our past experiences and successes, trying to repeat what we know has worked before and avoid the things that didn’t. We don’t put a lot of pressure on ourselves or spend much time to constantly improve, to get better a leader, or to push beyond our comfort zone. 

We get in the habit of reacting to things that are uncomfortable or atypical as they happen. Crisis and deadline-driven situations come up that require us to shift into overdrive. This is something we HAVE to address. We become highly accountable for leading people and projects through it. We’re challenged by the crisis, and that can often result in growth as a leader. As we’ve talked about before, accountability is a big part of “owning” leadership. 

But true ownership, the transformational kind, requires you to get uncomfortable on purpose. To step outside your comfort zone and make a conscious choice for how you allocate your time every day and every week in order to create different results. And to be accountable to the nth degree to make something happen, no matter what. 

These are actions that aren’t crisis-oriented or part of your normal routine. You have to decide how much you really care about the goal or outcome or whatever the “thing” is you want to accomplish. How much are you willing to sacrifice to ensure you achieve the results? How will this sacrifice impact you personally? How will this sacrifice impact your priorities? 

That’s why we turn the Leadership Excellence pyramid upside down. 

Spend your time/focus/energy on those things that will be a difference-maker and create the highest level of impact. Your commitment level is different at each of these stages, and that’s OK…it’s your choice for where and how you spend your time. It’s your decision about what will have the greatest impact to create different results that will move the needle for your area of the business. 

There may be multiple priorities, so it’s a matter of assigning the right level of urgency and being willing to make sacrifices in order to make something happen. If you want it…no, need it…you make the choice to own it! It’s your choice!

What are some things you need to happen for yourself and your business? What choices will you make to own them?