Leadership

It has been some time since my last entry, and while we have been in lockdown, it has also been incredibly busy. But that is no excuse!
Now that I look back on that time since my last post, I am struggling to think of things to write about. Which reminds me of the leadership course I am participating in. Normally a week long, face to face, intensive course, it was shifted to online this year so I am one of the first cohort to experience the 'new' online version. Run over 8 weeks, each week we have a 2 hour session to talk about leadership, hear from senior leaders in the industry and reflect on our leadership styles. According to the VIA Institute on Character my top strengths are "Love of Learning, Kindness, Humility and teamwork". The weekly sessions have been great but I have really struggled to get through all the additional reading and resources sent out. There are some great resources on Intentional Change Theory, Emotional agility and a coaching approach to leadership. I absolutely will go back and review the resources provided but I feel that I really haven't done the course justice while focusing on priority work tasks. A big takeaway for me is that I need to reflect more. I think this is potentially one of the cons to the 'Humility' characteristic - I very quickly move onto other things once I consider them done, no time to sit back and reflect but it is critical to the learning process. One of the senior leaders mentioned writing a leadership journal which I supoose this site is in a way but in a more holistic all of life way as opposed to just leadership. I think the biggest thing I would like to change in myself as part of this course is refraining from jumping into solution mode whenever someone comes to me with a problem. I need to take a step back and ask clarifying questions - easier said than done.

I have also been reading up on the classical Four temperaments although when I first learnt about it back in my call centre days, we learned them as 4 different animals to represent them:

• Sanguine being the Parrot or Peacock, the chatty social one
• Choleric being the Lion, the results orientated one
• Melencholic being the Owl, the logical and analytical one
• Phlegmatic the Labrador, the quiet, easy-going one

I love the simplicity of the the classical 4 which makes it much easier when considering communication styles but I have also been reading up on the Big 5 personality traits which I remember as OCEAN which allows for sliding scales for all 5 traits which I think is really great for understanding those initial reactions we have when a task or action is required.

The big question though is how will I apply all this in the future?
Unfortunately I haven't quite got to that part yet