Smart Leadership: Four Simple Choices to Scale Your Impact

Choices we make as leaders are our currency to create an impact, build trust and scale our influence as leaders.

Amidst all the complexity, distractions and disruptive changes, it is easy for us to get caught up on the treadmill of reacting to the external forces. How do we break this cycle so that we can create the future we want?

Mark Miller‘s book “Smart Leadership: Four Simple Choices to Scale Your Impact” offers excellent guidance on how to escape the quicksand by making right choices that sit at the heart of leadership. This guidance is vital because no team/individual/organization simply drifts towards greatness. It is a result of conscious choices we make.

So what do smart leaders choose?

Smart leaders choose to:

• Confront Reality to stay grounded in truth and lead from a position of strength.
• Grow Capacity to meet the demands of the moment and the challenges of the future.
• Fuel Curiosity to maintain relevance and vitality in a changing world.
• Create Change today to ensure a better tomorrow.

These four choices create a cycle where each choice enables the next one. When executed consistently, these choices enable leaders to create impact, increase influence and change the world for those around them.

Selected Quotes…

… that resonated with me:

“Reality is a leader’s most precious ally. What is true about you, your team, your organization, and your industry matters.”

“One of the most valuable life skills a leader can acquire is the ability to ask good, thought-provoking, and challenging questions.”

“Margin is simply the practice of allocating enough time to reflect, assess, think, create, and plan. We must create sufficient capacity for this critical work. Our leadership depends on it.”

“Your purpose is why you believe you were born. Your purpose is what gives ultimate meaning to your labor. Your purpose should give you the courage to do the hard work of leadership.”

“To Create Change in service of a better tomorrow is our calling and our contribution. We help make people, organizations, and the world better by the change efforts we lead.”

Here is a high-level summary of 4 choices presented in the book. I highly recommend reading the book for more nuanced ideas/insights.

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