Which is more important, leadership mindset or skillset?
This is a rare question that people don’t usually ask themselves until they become self-aware enough that they’ve already figured the answer out for themselves.
Yet this question is absolutely crucial to producing results in all areas of life.
It’s like the saying goes…
When does a fish discover water?
Well the poor little fishy discovers water and the importance of water AFTER it’s removed from water. I can’t speak from experience (but my friends from this page tell that I’m right) however I can imagine that if you’re a fish being removed from water is probably a pretty traumatizing, emotional, near death experience.
This is quite common with human beings as leaders.
We often times need to be removed from our comfort zone, our “box” so to speak, in a highly emotional experience to become aware of what’s holding us back.
The purpose of this blog post is to remove your mind from your comfort zone so that you can become aware of what’s holding you back from greater success.
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My Leadership Mindset vs. Skillset Breakthrough
A short while ago I experienced a breakthrough like this in my business which took my results, my income, from hundreds per month to thousands per month.
What happened ?
I changed my focus from developing my skillset to developing my leadership mindset.
Prior to this breakthrough, most of my focus had been in developing marketing and business skills, techniques, and strategies to drive revenue.
I had all this knowledge but for some reason my results were still less than expected.
Basically, there were other people doing the EXACT same things that I was doing yet they were getting far greater results than I was.
Right?
So I took the advice of several highly successful online business leaders and began focusing 80% of my time on leadership mindset, my own personal development.
Almost immediately my results skyrocketed and I went from earning hundreds per month to thousands per month.
As Humans We Are Creatures of Habit
We live in a predominantly left-brained society where most of us are trained via our traditional education system that our success is directly correlated with our technical skillset.
While no one is born a leader, they become one using all the skills and tools at their disposal. One way you can get into the habit and learn more about becoming a leader is by opting for corporate trainings. During these courses, you will learn everything from improving your communication to managing teams, verticals and eventually the entire organization.
This is untrue.
It comes down to this…
If your leadership development, your mindset, is not developed to the level needed to receive the results you’re capable of producing with your technical skillset, you’ll basically subconsciously sabotage yourself from attaining your desired (often expected) results.
This is why the “most educated” people in our society are NOT the highest paid; i.e. doctors, lawyers, professors, etc… Although they are paid well, they are NOT the highest paid individuals, not even close.
Of course you wouldn’t be aware of this self sabotage simply because it’s being put in to action by your subconscious mind, the same mechanism that tells your heart to beat, your lungs to breathe, and your taste buds to taste with zero conscious effort on your part.
In other words, you’re a fish in water.
I know this may be hard pill to swallow for some of you highly logical left-brain dominant techies, however if you truly listen with an opened mind and eliminate your prejudgment, you’ll find that most leaders who have the results that you desire are echoing this same message.
How to Develop Your Leadership Mindset?
In my case I held a belief that increasing my technical skillset would increase my income.
My operating based on this belief was not producing the results that I expected and desired.
So what happened? I was exposed to advice by successful online business leaders that threw me outside of my box, basically making me a fish out of water.
As a student of life who knows that in order to get the same results created by these successful leaders, I must model those successful leaders, I took the advice with an opened mind, changed my beliefs, and began operating based on a new belief system.
It was that change in belief that allowed me to comfortably work on developing my leadership mindset and because of that my results increased substantially. 95% of the people who read this blog post are going to have to work on developing their leadership mindset in order to produce the results that they want.
That’s just the way a majority of people in our present day society are wired.
Like I said earlier, our present day society has taught us that increasing technical skillset, the “how” of doing things is directly correlated to our success, untrue.
So how do I develop my leadership mindset?
Simply change your beliefs and your results will change.
Are You Ready To Challenge Your Current Beliefs?
Here goes…
Perhaps you’re thinking… “wait a second… I’m highly focused on developing my leadership mindset, after all, I’m sitting here at my computer reading a leadership development blog.”
Let’s take a look at this because our actions ALWAYS speak louder than our words.
- Are you spending more of your working hours developing your leadership mindset than you are on learning skills and techniques of your trade?
- Are you spending more money on leadership/personal development education (books, courses, seminars) then you are on educating yourself about your skillset?
- Are you exceeding your expectations?
- Are you creating the results that you desire? (be honest with yourself here)
If you answered NO to most of these questions, then it will likely serve you to put more time in to developing your leadership mindset rather than your technical skills.
*Note… There are people out there who already have a well-developed leadership mindset and simply need to hone a single skillset in order to produce extraordinary results. You can usually spot them immediately because when they focus on a specific technique, strategy, or skill, they quickly produce extraordinary results.
If you’re the type that is jumping from this thing to that thing constantly learning the next technical skill or strategy yet it never seems to “work out” the way its supposed to, then this is NOT you.
Obvious signs that you’re more focused on developing your technical skillset are…
- Feeling like you’re constantly not living up to your own expectations
- Results are less than you desired
- Constant feeling like you need to know the newest strategy or technique
- Going back to school/college another or an advanced degree because “it” will give you the success you’ve been looking for
- Spending hours on YouTube watching “How To” tutorials
- Purchasing tons of online marketing tutorials, “How To” eCourses
- Constant need to learn more BEFORE taking action
Things you can do to change your belief system and develop your leadership mindset…
- Read leadership/personal development books daily AND do the exercises within them
- Listen to audio recordings of leaders who have the results that you want
- Model those leaders that have the results that you want, follow their advice. After all, their ideas have gotten them the results that you want, your ideas have gotten you exactly what you currently have.
- Attend leadership development events and seminars
- Visualize your goals daily for 10-20 minutes
- Create 90 Day SMART goals
- Create a dream book/board/wall illustrating your dreams and goals
- Subscribe to this blog by entering your email in the box below
In the end both leadership mindset and skillset are important to creating successful results in your life, it’s more of a matter of developing the area that you are lacking, for most people that area is mindset.
Remember that when you are ready to BE the leader that creates the results you desire, your subconscious mind will automatically DO what’s necessary for you to HAVE those desired results.
About The Author
Stephanie Braga
Hi, I am Stephanie Braga. A professional blogger and content community manager on this platform. I love to write and post content on different niche. Contact me, if you need any help related to digital marketing or content marketing.
