No matter how prayerful, stoic or strong willed you are, life will throw storms your way; often when you least expect it! My storm may be different from yours, but whether its divorce, rejection, bankruptcy, job loss or the death of a loved one, we all know when a storm hits us. Often the way we interpret life’s storms determines whether we will sink with it or walk on top of it. Here are 5 leadership attitudes we can glean from our life’s storms which can prepare us to be effective in our roles as CEOs:
- Purpose – Go through storms to seek lessons, insights about yourself or the storm, mistakes or new direction instead of asking yourself “why me” and ending up more miserable than before. When you do this, you switch from frustration to purpose. A purposeful seeker has an inner calmness that refuses to be moved by the counter activities swirling around them. The longer the storm lasts, the more you seek and the better you become at perfecting the attitudes of purpose and determination.
Being an effective leader requires a great amount of determination and purpose because you need to rise above obstacles, setbacks, criticisms and disappointments. Learning how to seek wisdom in the storms of life is one sure way of nurturing purpose through challenges or crises, when you become a CEO.
- Discipline – The cousin of purpose is discipline. Storms don’t come announcing to us how long they will last. They just show up and until they pass, we need to continue doing the same things that keep us afloat, otherwise we will sink! That takes discipline and every effective leader knows that without discipline, they cannot undertake the multifaceted oversight functions that their role requires.
- Strength – After you have mastered purpose and discipline, you begin to gain a new strength you never knew existed in you had you not faced the storm. Strength manifests in several forms; emotional strength, mental strength, physical strength and spiritual strength. These are important because you cannot function effectively as a leader if you don’t know the multiplicity of strengths within you to harness in your time of need.
- Patience – Your strength enables you to hang in there for as long as it takes. Storms make us realize that there are circumstances in life that are beyond our control. This realization trains us to wait and allow time and sovereignty to sort out what we cannot control, while we occupy ourselves with those things that we have control over. A leader without patience will not go far and cannot sustain their purpose, discipline and strength.
- Aloneness – Patience teaches us that it is okay to be alone. Mind you, there is a difference between aloneness and loneliness. Loneliness is the stage you get to when you realize you need to interact with others to get your balance back. But aloneness is a focusing within your inner being to gain strength and focus so that you can ward off distractions and move on.
This is an attitude worth mastering because leaders often require bouts of aloneness to maintain their effectiveness and balance. Trailblazers often encounter people who do not understand the vision, methods and philosophies they ascribe to. During such times, it is aloneness that helps them stay focused to the end.
So the next time you go through a storm, don’t sweat it! Know that your life training seminar has just began!
