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Brain Circuits
Are you stuck in a leadership comfort zone?
If you’re known as a solid executor and a safe pair of hands but can’t see an exciting future for yourself in the organization, you may be overly risk-averse. Answer the questions below to see if this applies to you and check out the tips on leaving your comfort zone.
Risk-aversity: a self-check
- Am I constantly doing and not making space for myself or my team to learn?
- Do I tend not to engage proactively with colleagues beyond my immediate team(s) or function?
- When cross-collaboration is needed, do I default to asking my manager to make connections and forge agreements on my behalf?
- Do I hesitate to initiate opportunities that will take the organization as a whole forward?
- Do I habitually defer to other people’s priorities?
- Do I feel invisible to the people who really matter and the wider organization?
- Am I becoming bored with my role?
Tips on leaving your comfort zone
If you answered ‘yes’ to most of these questions, it sounds like you need to take control of your own destiny. Begin by identifying strategic areas you want to influence. Do you need to develop new expertise to do this? To have a greater impact, you will need to be more visible across the organization and within its upper echelons. This means reprioritizing your time so you can think more deeply, network, and take a leading role in cross-functional projects – so you need to change how you lead others. To further your new priorities, try the following:
- Delegate more and don’t take on work without considering who else could do it.
- Demand more from your team regarding objectives and standards.
- Engage in difficult conversations rather than try to solve every problem yourself.
- Prioritize meetings relating to your strategic objectives and contribute more to them
- Understand that you can take matters into your own hands.
- Give yourself permission to lead autonomously and actively seek opportunities to step forward.
Key takeaways
Taking greater ownership over your role, being more adventurous and future-oriented in your thinking, and asserting more control in your interactions with others will help you leave your comfort zone and realize your true leadership potential.
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