#Beingaleader means you need to have long term thinking. Not just in-the-moment thinking but about what long term strategic impact you want to have or see be accomplished. To give things up sometimes in the here and now for something greater coming later.
That is often a difficult thing to do in one’s personal life. Giving up something today by saving for the future or whatever. But in the team you are leading you have to be making sacrifices today for what you want later both as a group and in the individual team members. For example, training someone today for a future payoff in success. Building a program today for a system that is in place and is repeatable. Putting in the time and effort now to reap a harvest.
But long term thinking is more than vision. Vision has a component of sowing today to reap a harvest in the future. But there is additionally a component of thinking about the future and what you want to see happen while living in the present and not fully seeing it. We touched briefly on that in the last post about Restlessness.
Long term thinking means you have to actually spend time thinking about the long term. That is a discipline in itself and is often lacking in leaders. Simply thinking about the future is hard work and is often relegated to the end of the year or beginning of the next. If that is you, then go ahead and do the thinking at that time but don’t neglect it during the rest of the year. What is the future you want to see?
#Beingaleader means you can’t just live in the moment. You need to think about the long term implications so that what you have built will last.
Being A Leader 