As we work on how to best increase our lead­er­ship capac­ity, we must be aware of how our think­ing either helps or hin­ders our lead­er­ship effec­tive­ness. You see, our think­ing impacts our beliefs, our beliefs impact our actions, and our actions impact our results. Note: This post is part of a series on Increas­ing Your Lead­er­ship Capac­ity. Click here for the pre­vi­ous step.

As an exec­u­tive coach at Build­ing Cham­pi­ons, I have seen count­less break­throughs with busi­ness lead­ers as the result of them work­ing to improve how they think.
Here are 6 tips for you to improve your think­ing.

1. Sched­ule your think­ing time. At Build­ing Cham­pi­ons, we call it ON time. Make sure you have ON time as a non-negotiable dis­ci­pline in your busi­ness plan and your time block.
2. Have a think­ing place. In John Maxwell’s book Think­ing for a Change, he shares how his best think­ing is done in his think­ing chair. In fact, this is how John played a role in being our home decorator!
3. Watch less news and garbage. The media thrives by cap­tur­ing our atten­tion, and unfor­tu­nately what cap­tures most of us these days is the neg­a­tive. Limit your­self to no more than 10 min­utes of the news per day and you will know what you need to know. And as far as TV goes, I am a fan of not watch­ing it at all unless I’m watch­ing a good movie from time to time.
4. Read the good stuff. What books will cause you to think and believe bet­ter? Read what will stretch your think­ing, cen­ter you and equip you to live and lead better.
5. Ask those clos­est to you to call you out when they see you exhibit­ing bad think­ing. This means you must trust a few in your life and on your team enough to be vul­ner­a­ble with them and ask them for their input on your think­ing and actions. This is good accountability.
6. Hire a good coach. I think that one of our great­est oppor­tu­ni­ties as coaches here at Build­ing Cham­pi­ons is to chal­lenge, encour­age and to stretch the think­ing of the busi­ness lead­ers who hire us. As I said above, a leader’s think­ing directly impacts his lead­er­ship capacity.

To improved think­ing in the year ahead!

Note: This post is part of a series on Increas­ing Your Lead­er­ship Capac­ity.
Step 1: Own Your Role
Step 2: Be Healthy

Related posts:

1. You Need a Road Map (Increas­ing Your Lead­er­ship Capac­ity Series — Step 5 of 8)
2. Know Your Hand­ful (Increas­ing Your Lead­er­ship Capac­ity Series — Step 8 of 8)
3. Be Healthy (Increas­ing Your Lead­er­ship Capac­ity Series — Step 2 of 8)
4. Be Hun­gry and Hum­ble (Increas­ing Your Lead­er­ship Capac­ity Series — Step 4 of 8)
5. Get Rid of Your Job (Increas­ing Your Lead­er­ship Capac­ity Series — Step 7 of 8)

Tags: Behavior, Disciplines, Leadership, Thinking

This entry was posted on Friday, January 6th, 2012 at 8:00 am and is filed under Leadership, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.