BE THE CHANGE
How lessons from the world’s top leaders can inspire our everyday lives
The past 18 months have taught us change is something that can’t be avoided. And while many of those changes haven’t been for the better, there are ways we can play a part in creating positive differences.
Author Holly Ransom has interviewed inspiring leaders from a diverse range of roles, fields and cultures. In her book The Leading Edge, she reveals the valuable lessons learned and how to gain inspiration at work, home and in the community.
“What we need is everyone stepping up and acknowledging that they’re a leader, and making that really active choice to become the leader the world needs to be,” Ransom says.
TAKE A LEADING ROLE
Being a leader can mean many things. It could be the initiative you take in helping others, being a role model for your family, or simply standing up for something that you believe in.
“My grandma’s never had a formal leadership title. But my earliest memory, and the first lesson that I got in leadership, was her intervening in a situation in a supermarket when I was four or five years old to correct disrespectful behaviour because she wasn’t going to walk past that,” Ransom says. “Leadership is the way that we show up in every situation and every relationship in our life.”
PREPARE TO GET MESSY
We often worry so much about making mistakes that we hold ourselves back from reaching our full potential. Introducing a sense of play and taking on manageable risks can lead the way to creating new ideas.
Ransom explains the key is to open yourself to feedback early in the process.
“Pixar do this great thing called plussing. They meet as a team every day and look at the latest version of the animation that’s been created in the past 24 hours,” she says. “It’s so fresh, but no-one’s so wedded to it, no-one’s spent two years on it and therefore they can look at it critically, decide whether it works, and take the feedback and move on.”
DARE TO BE DIFFERENT
Whether it’s Barack Obama or Richard Branson, Ransom says all the top leaders she’s interviewed have three things in common: a strong sense of purpose, a secure sense of self and a willingness for innovative thinking. “They’ve all been prepared to be courageous, step out of the box and try and do things differently,” she explains. “They feel very comfortable in who they are and the way that they’re showing up.”
MANAGE ENERGY, NOT TIME
While working from home has given us more flexibility, the disruptions to our old routines have meant some people are clocking longer hours than ever.
If you’re struggling, it might help to switch the focus to managing your energy instead. Do you often feel zapped in the morning? Try focusing on less intensive tasks like answering emails early, so you can concentrate on more challenging assignments when your energy peaks later. “Do an energy audit, pay attention to what your body naturally likes to do, and then think how you match energy with activity,” Ransom advises.
MASTER THE MINI BREAK
Ransom is a big believer in using mini breaks to recharge. “It doesn’t need to be an hour at the gym,” she says. “It can be as simple as 10 deep breaths or getting up and doing some lunges or squats in between meetings to wake our body up.”
One thing it definitely doesn’t mean is glancing at your phone every few minutes. If you can’t help yourself, Ransom suggests putting your phone on aeroplane mode during times you really need to focus. “I think that cost of distraction is a really big one,” she says. “We don’t realise how much of a toll it takes on our energy.”