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

Embracing Servant Leadership in Your Relationships

Servant leadership is an especially popular idea in the faith community. Yet, servant leadership is applicable in more arenas than in the religious world. You can practice servant leadership wherever you lead.

But, you may be asking yourself, what is servant leadership?

Servant leadership places an emphasis on the leader to steward and care for the resources of an organization. They believe they’ve been placed in a position of trust. More than that, this line of reasoning uses the idea that leaders are servants first. They have to make the needs of their employees a priority.

This flips the script on the traditional leadership paradigm. The leader is no longer at the top. Their main goal is to serve others and help the organization thrive. 

It’s a bold concept. That works.

The Role Of Faith In Maintaining A Positive Leadership Mindset

While Christian leaders still express negativity in their leadership, faith-based leaders tend to have a more positive leadership mindset than those who don’t express belief in a higher power. This doesn’t mean Christian leaders don’t struggle with negative thoughts. However, when they do, they can flip it to a positive mindset more easily than someone who lacks belief.

Faith has been a crucial component in my leadership. From the leaders I interact with to the reasons I lead, faith is central to it all.

It’s also one of the reasons I keep a positive mindset. I want you to be able to maintain a positive leadership mindset as well.

In this article, we will look at the role of faith in maintaining a positive leadership mindset.

Trust is Key: What Successful Leaders Do to Build Trust with Their Teams

Have you ever worked for a leader or organization you didn’t trust? I have. It’s not fun.

You’re constantly worried about your position in the organization. You wonder if your boss or owner will stab you in the back, leaving you without a job. You may even question your sanity because your boss has made you doubt yourself.

I’ve had that happen. It was all due to a lack of trust.

I don’t want that to happen to you… or the people you lead.

An organization that builds trust is an unstoppable force. The leader rallies behind the people. The people rally behind the leader.

Both know they have each other’s backs and can be trusted. It’s a magical situation.

It is not a situation that is easily created. You will have to work on building trust with your teams.

The 3 Main Principles Of Servant Leadership

Servant leadership originated with Robert K. Greenleaf. He wrote an essay titled “The Servant as Leader,” in which he laid out his thoughts on leadership.

His thoughts were new for the time. They’re still valid today, in my opinion.

In this article, I want to look at the principles Greenleaf laid out as he promoted the concept of servant leadership. These 3 principles will help you become a better, more servant-minded leader.

A man praying over another man at a conference

Photo by Jack Sharp on Unsplash

The 3 Main Principles Of Servant Leadership

In his essay, Greenleaf mentioned 3 items that stuck out to me. They are that servant leaders listen, have empathy, and their role is more in line with a facilitator or an enabler.

These are the principles we’re going to look at in this article.

Servant Leadership Listening:

Everyone wants to believe they’re great listeners. They think they’re able to sit down, have a person explain what’s going on, and just listen.