Embrace Challenge

Why should you, as a leader, embrace challenges?

It’s tempting to think that challenging events and situations are only stressful and negative, but they can also contribute to some of your greatest strengths as a human being and leader.

Here are three tips to reframe your thinking about challenges:

Tip number one is to see the challenge as a confidence-building opportunity. Your confidence as a leader is strengthened by overcoming the challenges you have faced along the way.

Some circumstances in the workplace, especially around COVID-19, could appear negative— such as cutbacks. Or, they may be positive: you might be dealing with unprecedented growth and integrating new team members into your production flow. No matter what, overcoming these challenges will build your confidence for future situations.

The second tip to remember is that challenges build capabilities. You have and will get better at things after you’ve faced the hurdles along the way. You will have new strengths and skills you didn’t possess before. These challenges have actually built your capabilities for future success.

Finally, remember that challenges build bench strength. Not only do you grow from difficult or stretching scenarios, but when you overcome them, your team gets stronger as you go through them together. Protecting your team from facing adversity is not going to help build their strengths. Instead, let them go through the learning that comes from facing and successfully navigating challenges.

Using these three tips in your everyday approach will help you continue to view challenges as a positive, instead of a negative, in the workplace.