The mind truly is everything for human beings as it is precisely what makes us who we are. As a leader, one has to undertake more responsibilities and pressures than the average person, so business leaders must possess or develop strong minds to remain intact under serious pressure. With leadership in focus, we are going to quickly go through a few steps towards developing that mental toughness next.
Understand What a Strong Mind Is Not: Mind Vs. Mindset
There is a stark difference between a strong mind and a strong mindset, although they can often coexist. A mindset would be any set of ideas that govern an individual’s actions as a leader (in this case), so a strong mindset could very well mean that they are confident but too well set into their own ideology to be effective in a world that’s constantly changing.
A strong-minded leader will also have ideologies of their own, but they will also have the mental strength to pull themselves out of their previous mindset if that adaptation leads to better results as a business leader. Understanding this core difference between a developed, strong mind, and a fixed mindset is the first step towards developing the former.
Recognize and Adopt the Core Attributes of a Strong Business Leader
It’s not about replicating the actions and decisions of someone you admire as a leader, but more about identifying the core ideologies which inspire you the most. When you are capable of identifying the core attributes of a strong-minded leader, you can start incorporating them into your own decision making and leading methods through practice.
Let’s list a few of the most important attributes of the strongest leaders in business today so that you can easily find which of the ideals inspire you most.
- Focus – Ability to not lose focus of the long-term objective, even amidst chaos and distractions.
- Tenacity – Ability to continue on the same path despite failures, albeit with the necessary flexibility.
- Positive Mindset – As Jennifer Dawn discusses in The Energy of Abundance, it’s not about attracting just money and success with a positive mindset, but about finding the freedom and strength to retain that positivity, through thick and thin.
- Flexibility – Adaptation is how both life and business survive and thrive.
- Control – This is not as much about becoming a control freak, as it is about not letting anyone else control your actions.
- Cohesiveness – A leader is someone whom people follow because he/she is able to inspire that sense of being in a unit.
Practice Handling Pressure
Perhaps the strongest minds are possessed by the ones who can handle pressure the best, and even though some of it must be innate, the following exercises can help you become a better leader under pressure.
- Prepare ahead of time, to minimize the chances of being in an unprepared state in any situation.
- Practice fluid thinking to handle unprecedented situations with quick responses.
- Practice impulse control to give yourself more time to make the right decision; there is almost always more time than it feels like when you are under pressure.
- Practice the basic principle of problem-solving, and only focus on one problem at a time.
Anxiety and leadership come hand-in-hand with each other, but successful leaders are the ones who are able to hold themselves together, despite the tremendous pressure and anxiety which naturally originates from it.
