Why ‘what should I do’ is the wrong question to ask
How do you become optimal, healthy and enduring in your leadership?
Even the most experienced and senior executives ask themselves this question. Whether you are a newly appointed leader or at the top of your career, those who are ambitious about their impact often ask ‘how can I be better?’. The answer to ‘how do I become a brilliant leader?’ – in my experience, is to ‘be’ first and ‘do’ after.
Heighten your operational level of ‘being’ to match your – no doubt already high – operational level of ‘doing.’
Take more time choose how to ‘be’ as a #LEADER and your performance will be taken to a very different level, allowing your impact to be even greater.
By focusing on how you choose to ‘be’ also increases the connection to your natural resources, heightening your wellbeing and consequently allowing you to be brilliant, at a sustained level, as you go about what you ‘do.’
We call this performance leadership. It is the optimal, healthy and enduring balance between ‘doing’ and ‘being’. Here is the outline.
Leadership of Doing (As leaders we know this very well)
Focuses on action, execution, results, and direction. It’s about what leaders do—tasks, goals, and tangible outcomes.
Key Principles:
- Goal Orientation Setting clear targets and ensuring alignment. Example: A sales leader sets aggressive quarterly revenue targets and aligns team incentives accordingly.
- Decisiveness Making timely, effective decisions under pressure. Example: A product manager quickly approves a design change to meet a launch deadline.
- Accountability & Performance Management Holding people responsible for results. Example: A team leader conducts regular performance reviews to address underperformance and celebrate high achievers.
- Planning & Execution Organising people and resources efficiently to achieve results. Example: A project manager creates a detailed rollout plan for a new internal software system.
- Problem Solving Identifying issues and implementing solutions.Example: An operations leader redesigns a supply chain to eliminate bottlenecks and reduce costs.
Leadership Focus:
- Leadership of ‘doing’ is what is traditionally considered as ‘leadership.’ . The leader focuses on understanding leadership theories, models and case studies that help effectiveness in delivery and doing. Often ‘taught’ in an executive education classroom, often by academics, usually sitting down for hours on end.
2. Leadership of Being (the key to performance leadership)
Focuses on character, presence, emotional intelligence, and the deeper human qualities that inspire trust and connection. It’s about who you are as a leader and how you intentionally choose to show up and to communicate effectively in any moment, with any audience.
Key Principles (put simply and not exhaustive):
- Authenticity Leading with personal integrity and alignment between values and actions. Example: A senior executive shares their own challenges with burnout to model openness and self-care for their team.
- Empathy & Emotional Intelligence Proactively prioritising, understanding, inviting and caring about others’ perspectives and emotions. Example: A team leader adjusts workload for a team member dealing with a family crisis, without being asked.
- Presence & Mindfulness Being mentally and emotionally present; calm under pressure and clear in thinking in every moment..Example: A CEO grounds a panicked executive team during a crisis by calmly focusing on what they can control.
- Trust Building Consistently demonstrating reliability, respect, and fairness.Example: A department head involves employees in major decisions, building a culture of inclusion and trust.
- Purpose & Vision Anchoring Connecting day-to-day work to a deeper meaning or shared purpose. Aligning many around a common goal through human connection and communication. Prioritising the alignment of personal and professional values to the shared purpose. Example: A nonprofit leader reminds staff how their administrative work contributes to transforming lives.
Leadership Focus:
- Leadership of ‘being’ focuses on enabling human nature, human connection and human communication. An approach that blends leadership intelligence, human intelligence and performance intelligence. It enables natural leadership across leadership systems by prioritising congruence between thinking, feeling and doing. Not ‘taught’ but ‘experienced’ in dynamic, engaging and experiential learning to ensure personalised and immediate change.
Summary:
How to be a brilliant leader means being able to ‘be’ before you ‘do’. In that order. Be first and you’ll naturally do better, have a greater impact, heighten wellbeing in yourself and others an create optimal, healthy and enduring leadership. This is performance leadership, through human excellence, naturally resourced.
Leadership of ‘Doing’ Is
Action, results, problem-solving, performance
Meeting targets, managing projects, making decisions quickly
Leadership of ‘Being’ Is
Presence, connection, authenticity, trust
Creating safe spaces, modeling values, leading with empathy
In Practice: Exceptional leaders integrate both:
- They do with clarity, courage, and discipline.
- They be with presence, integrity, and heart.
Welcome to Performance Leadership Through Human Excellence.
At the natural leader we enable Performance Leadership, naturally, through leadership development, team performance and executive coaching.
Email us at hello@thenaturalleader.com