According to the definition from the Harvard Business Review (HBR):
management consists of controlling a group or a set of entities to accomplish a goal, and
leadership refers to an individual’s ability to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward organizational success.
This explains quite easily and straightforwardly your position today, and we are not talking about the position or the job title that you have been given.
If you think for a moment about the essence of your work processes – are you really just managing yourself, your projects and the people around you, even if by position you are the marketing leader or the head of marketing? Or are you also motivating, influencing and inspiring yourself and others around you to be more, to become more, to learn and to grow, with or without the leadership status in your job title?
Maybe you already are a leader today, even without a proper title or without your own acknowledgement. Or worse – maybe you are a leader by position but you are not a leader in essence. The easiest way to understand it is to think of the number of people outside your reporting hierarchy who come to you for advice. They already appreciate and look for your opinion, that is an important sign. So remember, You won’t become a real leader through the position you’ve been given, you only become a leader through your actions.
And if you really want to become a Powerful Marketer, then you need to grow into being a good leader for everybody you work with. Imagine a day where you wake up inspired and motivated, you feel great at work because you perform great at your work and you inspire others? You would return home fulfilled at the end of the day, and happy. This day will happen if you dare to take responsibility in your company’s marketing inside and outside the company, if you inspire others to do that and if you work on your performance.
“You are never too young to lead and never too old to learn.”
Kofi Annan
If the word “leader” scares you, then think for a moment why it is so? You are a leader anyway – whether you acknowledge it or not. You lead your own life and happiness by every action you take. You always follow certain processes in your life and you always inspire yourself and others either negatively or positively by your attitude and by your mindset. Your mental and emotional state always radiates out of you via energy. And the good news is that you can choose your energy and your mindset. And only you can do that.
Work with your mindset, with your fears – because the greatest achievement in life is to win yourself.
It gives you so much joy and a thrill of success! You know this feeling when you have stepped out of your comfort zone and done something you know you should do, but you are too lazy for that (like going to the gym)? This is exactly it! And another good news is that all skills can be learned! You have the power to grow into a leader bit by bit, if you are ready to take this responsibility for your own success.
You might now think that you are stuck in the company where your boss is stopping you from achieving results as he or she doesn’t lead well or doesn’t understand things the way they really should be. But this is also your responsibility to be intelligent enough and to understand communication literacy in order to take action and to show the other possible ways. Because by helping him or her to be a better leader, you will grow yourself and you will grow into being a leader yourself over time. Powerful marketer is humble, smart, skillful and is always taking responsibility for greater tasks, not only the ones written in their daily to-do list. Remember that powerful marketer will always be there for the sake of the customers and for the sake of the company. It is not about you, you need to work with yourself to be strong enough to see and know and to live by that.
So, how to become an inspiring leader?
If you can answer this question, you already have a powerful tool to increase your competitive edge. Inspired employees are more than twice as productive as satisfied employees, according to the research that Bain&Co conducted with the Economist Intelligence Unit.
They also refer that as the nature of work grows increasingly into a collaborative and self-directed form, inspiration can make the difference between teams that outperform and those that lag. Leadership systems that systematically build up inspiration work because, at their essence, they honor the complexity of human relationships, foster authenticity and create a common platform for every individual to make unique contributions. Companies that tap into that powerful combination will gain a competitive advantage that few can match.
Still don’t know where to start?
Our suggestion is to just start with yourself: what are your fears that hold you back and how strong is your will to follow your dreams? If you do that, you need to follow certain processes in order to perform perfectly! You need to know what are the weaknesses you need to work on, you need to understand and acknowledge psychology of yourself and others and just learn in depth communication literacy – that will help you everywhere in your lifetime! You need to put actions in your calendar and you really need to work with accountability. You need that a lot as a leader, so start with yourself!
While inspiration may seem difficult to decipher, Bain & Co identified 33 distinct and tangible attributes that are statistically significant in creating inspiration in others. And having just four of those attributes as distinguishing strengths is sufficient to make someone highly inspiring. The findings also demonstrate that people who inspire are incredibly diverse. Any combination of distinguishing strengths works: There is no fixed archetype of an inspirational leader.
www.bain.com
So, no more procrastination – this is not the way to become a POWERFUL MARKETER.
Work on your own success now, and become that self-confident inspiring marketer you know you can be!
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