Recent reflection I was asked to complete

I was asked recently by a friend to provide some of my own perspectives on questions related to leadership, in preparation for her final presentation as part of her graduation.

Here were the questions posed:

1. Please describe your company and your role.
2. Share your view on community involvement.
3. Please describe your leadership style within your firm.
4. How would you turn followers in to leaders?
5. What is the greatest challenge facing leaders today?

This was a great exercise and allowed me to really stop and think. I wanted to share it with you all and encourage you to do the same....it's a great way to stay mindful about who YOU are and what you think about. So here were my answers:

1. Giombetti Associates is a leadership development firm that helps individuals, teams and organizations become world-class. We specialize in leadership development, team building, talent acquisition & evaluation and all things related to building high-performance organizations through teams and people. We leverage a behaviorally based assessment process that goes significantly deeper than most others and delivers impactful feedback and coaching that stimulates sustainable growth. 

My role as President is to provide the best direction, guidance and leadership to our team as I possibly can. I spend most of my time mentoring our teammates and clients, building relationships and providing impactful feedback.

2. Here's the way I view community involvement; REQUIREMENT. I want to explain though; plenty of folks engage in community events for the benefit of gaining additional exposure or recognition. At Giombetti Associates we are very involved in developing young students, giving back to families in need and supporting local causes in need of more attention or support. If life has been good to you or not, one of the best things you can do is to help others, but we don't seek out the limelight in order to draw attention to who we are or what we do.

3. My style: I'll give you the good and the bad. I'm known by family, friends, colleagues and clients alike to be extremely driven. When I was younger, I use to be much worse at controlling and harnessing that motivation and drive. I move very quickly in everything I do, with a strong sense of urgency. I'm known to be very engaging, I LOVE people. Relationship building may very well be one of my favorite things to do. I use intuition and instinct in almost everything I do and I trust it. I'd like to think one of the reasons why I was put on this earth was to make everyone around me better....I apply that to those who work for me, my friends, clients and family. I'm very direct, I do not believe in sugar-coating. People around you don't learn as much if you aren't lovingly critical and honest with them.

The bad; I'm impatient, though I can certainly say I manage it better than 3-5 years ago. I still want things done yesterday and I look for quick progress. My impatience causes me to let things bother me more than they should, even little things that don't matter. I'm a fixer. Even now, though worse 5 years ago, I feel the need to fix everything and everyone. I need to do a better job at not jumping to conclusions too quickly. I have been working very hard on stepping out of the driver seat more often to let others lead and experience either success or failure. I have a big personality and unfortunately it can overwhelm people. I'm loud, so what is really my excitement and passion becomes too much for people who are different than me and I am mindful of that every day. I have up's and down's. I get very excited, and when someone else isn't or doesn't like what I like, I take it very hard and that's on ME. 

4. I look at this question maybe a little differently. What's wrong with followers? Why should everyone be a leader? We can't have all chiefs on a team, either sports or business. There are people who are truly GREAT at being a follower. There are others who are truly GREAT at leading. For someone to step into leadership, and out of followership, it requires courage. It requires confidence. It requires a certain level of engagement and influence that is not so easily taught. It requires being comfortable challenging everyone around you to higher levels of performance, you have to be willing to have the hard conversations and move on from them. There's also a certain level of internal drive, grit and toughness that is not so easily taught. You have decide what is the best fit for YOU....not what the world, your organization or society is telling you to do or who to be.

5. The greatest challenge facing leaders today, from my perspective, is the willingness to be vulnerable. Even when you hear this word, most people cringe and are uncomfortable with the word itself. So many leaders have no clue about how to be vulnerable. They are used to a certain amount of success and thus think they're already great. They don't want to face what they might suck at, and they certainly don't want to talk about it. Without being vulnerable, you can't surround yourself with the right people who will challenge your ideas and push you and your organization forward. You can't be REAL and nobody can RELATE to you. You don't OWN your struggles, instead deflecting or making light of them. And guess what, the rest of the people around you will either do the same thing or never want to be around you.