4 Ways To Balance Leadership Roles And Personal Identity

When I started to blog, I found myself losing myself. I wanted so badly to be successful that I gave up a lot of my identity. I stopped watching television and movies, I changed the way I dressed, and I even left behind hobbies I enjoyed.

What happened here?

I lost my personal identity. I let my role as a leadership blogger supersede my personal identity. And it sucked.

Woman sitting in front of an Apple MacBook laptop

Photo by Mapbox on Unsplash

While I saw success blogging and sharing my leadership insights, I felt adrift. I felt like I was missing something. I was. I was missing myself.

Talking to other leaders, this happens often. New leaders have their own unique style that gets pushed to the background so they can fit in with the current slate of leaders. The same leaders that come and go.

Here’s the crazy part. One thing remains the same: YOU

The Influence Of A Leader’s Actions In Personal And Professional Relationships

As a leader, people are watching you. They’re looking to see how you will respond to difficult circumstances, challenging people, and even success. People want to know how you will respond to what you’re experiencing. 

Beyond that, people are also listening. They’re listening to hear what you say, how you say it, and in what tone you say what you say. 

Being a leader is difficult because you’re always under a microscope. 

You have to step into leadership knowing this. When you do, you’re prepared to understand how your actions influence personal and professional relationships.

I always think of the youth students my wife and I have mentored. We’ve been in youth ministry for over 20 years. That’s an insane amount of time, but we love the students and know we’re making a difference.

5 Examples Of Leaders From The Bible

When I think of great leaders, I think of the myriad of leaders in the Bible. You can’t get away from the fact that while the people highlighted in the Bible were flawed, many of them were examples of great leadership.

People like Moses, King David, Abraham, Esther, and more… These people had their issues (just like you and me), but they also had the makings of great leaders.

I want to focus on some of the great people in the Bible and what their example can be for us today as leaders.

5 Examples Of Leaders From The Bible

Deborah:

Women were overlooked for far too long in the church and leadership sphere. Yet, the Bible is clear that many of the women in the Bible were leaders.

Take Deborah, for example.

Making Difficult Decisions With Confidence And Integrity

You’re a leader. You have to make the difficult decisions within your organization. These are the decisions that weigh heavy on your conscious.

Some of these weighty decisions could be:

  • Whether or not to do rolling layoffs in the midst of an economic downturn
  • Releasing an employee for a moral or ethical failure
  • Closing the doors of your organization
  • Standing firm in your beliefs

Each of these decisions requires you to be bold, strong, and courageous. Each of these decisions can also hurt someone else. That’s what makes these decisions so weighty…

There’s a consequence behind the decision.

But…

As a leader, it’s your responsibility to make these tough decisions. You must search deep in your soul and choose the right actions to take.

Not everyone will like your decisions. You will have to live with them. But they’re yours to own.

10 Qualities Of An Effective Leader

Leading is made even more difficult when you don’t know the qualities of a good or effective leader. You’ll wander through the leadership landscape wondering what you’re supposed to do next.

We all know that’s no good! 

Sure, learning by trial and error is what many of us do, but it’s not the most effective way to lead. To lead effectively, we have to have a baseline of what effective leadership looks like.

That’s why you came to this article. You wanted to know how to be an effective leader. In this article, I will share with you 10 qualities of an effective leader. You can begin implementing these qualities into your leadership style today!

10 Qualities Of An Effective Leader

1. Humility:

The best leaders I’ve met have also been the most humble people. They know they’re good but they don’t have to brag, talk down to, or one-up others.