I want to talk about YOU as a leader today
—explore what keeps you from doing it, and touch on alternate leadership models. I’ll even explain the Robert De Niro Champions Lady Leader headline!
If you are on my list, you have enormous potential as a leader. The Law of Attraction dictates that, along with the fact that you’re probably hiding out from your leadership capacity. I’ve spent many years doing just that.
Here are some of the symptoms of hiding out from your power:
- Extreme frustration with management at your place of employment
- Generalized irritation with life which occasionally or often gets ramped up to anger
- Impatience
- Backseat driving
- Aligning yourself with a powerful leader (through an intimate relationship) so you’re near it but don’t have to do it.
Do any of these sound familiar?
One of the main reasons I’ve avoided stepping into my potential as a leader is “proof” I’ve experienced about what being a leader means:
- Isolation from other workers
- Becoming the one nobody likes
- Oppressive models of leadership/ Becoming a “bad guy”
- Disdain from leaders for “regular working stiffs”/ Fear of losing capacity for empathy and compassion
Those are just a few examples of the skeletons banging around in my head. What’s in your head that makes you think it’s better to avoid leadership, or that you aren’t equipped for leadership?
Now for the Robert De Niro Champions Lady Leader part.
I just saw the movie The Intern this week, starring Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway, and Renee Russo, among others. It’s directed by master of romantic comedy Nancy Meyers. I recommend it. It’s light, funny—an easy way to approach the subject of what makes for effective leadership.
It opens as seventy-year-old widower Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro), a retired executive from a phone book company, applies to a senior citizen intern program after retirement has become too boring for him. The company in Brooklyn he applies to is About the Fit, a fast-growing e-commerce fashion startup whose twenty or thirty-something founder and CEO Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway) has grown it from a kitchen start-up to 220-employee juggernaut in only eighteen months.
The plot moves in relatively predictable ways—the part that surprised me was De Niro’s feminist position. His character is an old-school business guy with a strong history of leadership and success. But from the get-go as a new intern, he is respectful, open-minded, interested in his young boss’ work approach. Ultimately, he’s willing to go out on a limb as her ally. He supports her feminine approach to inspiring and instructing her team.
I loved this story supporting the validity and strengths of out-of-the-box leadership (compared to traditional male business modeling) To me this was cool, and worthy of note. For the guy who has played so many mobster roles to champion a lady leader, brought him up a notch in my estimation, just by association!
Coach’s Challenge: Check the movie out, enjoy. Then I invite you to begin to notice the models of leadership around you. What attracts you? Repels you? Where are you limiting your idea of how you do or do not fit into the role of “leader?” What would need to change for you to say “yes” to leadership? This is one of the things I help my clients with: helping them redefine power so they can confidently step into their own. Interested? I’d be glad to have a free 30 minute conversation with you about it—just reply to this email if you’re interested.
