The Importance of Positioning Yourself as a Leader

The key to driving success in any career is positioning yourself as a leader no matter what role or title you currently have. No matter your title, you absolutely can show up as a leader. Learning to tap into your personal strengths and develop a leadership mindset is something you can start doing right now.  Take Andrea Martin, founder of the Success Blueprint Vault.  At just 22 years of age, she started her career working in a male-dominated industry with brutal working hours. Having to work 24 days straight each month, Andrea soon learnt that she needed to learn to work under pressure and harness a hustle mindset to climb her way to the top. Andrea has accomplished just that by positioning herself as a leader in her industry with over a decade of experience.  Here she outlines 3 ways you too can hone your leadership skills and position yourself as a leader, no matter what title you currently hold.

Influencing others

One way to position yourself as a leader is the level of influence you have on your peers. How you influence those around you is a huge indicator whether someone is management material. But it can also be an indication of the opposite. If people want to follow your lead, you have to make sure you are doing so in a positive way. Explain to your team or peers the whys of the work that they do, and help them to accomplish team and individual goals.

 By showing them what is possible and motivating them to believe those possibilities are attainable, you will be positioning yourself as a leader. Leadership is more than getting people to do what you want, it’s inspiring them to do it.  It’s easy to tell someone what to do, but it’s incredibly difficult to get them to do their best without influencing them through constant motivation and positive reinforcement. Influencing others is not just about getting them to act but also helping them to feel a profound sense of accomplishment when goals are attained. 

Being a Consistent High-performer.

Another way to position yourself as a leader is to consistently deliver high-performance. Learn to make performing your best day after day a habit.

Delivering consistent high performance includes anticipating challenges, managing and embracing change, and not allowing distractions to make you lose focus. A great leader and high-performer will always seek to learn new skills to separate yourself from others, but also focuses on accomplishing the basics extremely well. 

Be Bold, But Remain Self-aware
The third way to position yourself as a leader is to be bold but be self-aware. Work on increasing your emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and manage your own emotions, as well as recognize, understand, and influence the emotions of others, a quality every great leader should have! Make sure you’re constantly working increasing your self-awareness and social awareness. Be aware of what is going on around you and how you can impact things differently. Book smarts and technical savviness is something we can all possess, but technical experience is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to management material.

Unless you become open to constantly focusing and working on your leadership skills, then you’ll probably miss out on not only career opportunities, but opportunities to grow on a personal level. By implementing Andrea’s lessons, leadership will most certainly be in your future in every aspect of your life. If you want to learn more about Andrea and her work, head over to her Instagram @mrs.andrea.martin.