You can’t learn great leadership from reading a book. You learn it by training your body.
That might seem counterintuitive, because there are thousands of books on leadership. But if great leadership was something you could learn from a book, then how come great leaders are so rare?
I often compare leadership to a physical skill like skiing. Reading books about skiing won’t help you when you’re standing at the top of a steep slope, because you haven’t trained your body to navigate that situation automatically. It’s too complex to think your way through, and your natural tendencies (like leaning into the mountain) will make it impossible to succeed.
Similarly, great leadership means learning to navigate instinctively in complex conditions while going against our previously learned tendencies:
— Speaking up when it feels safer to keep quiet.
— Asking or telling others to do something when we could do it ourselves.
— Saying no to the easy and familiar so you can say yes to the ambitious and uncertain.
When I first meet a new client, they walk out of that session with an insight into what they want to change in their behavior. They think it will be easy to change because now they know what to do. Then they come back a couple weeks later, and realize that of the dozens of opportunities they had to behave differently, they maybe did it once. Because change requires changing the body, not the mind – retraining our nervous system to respond differently in the moment.
Training leadership in the body means breaking down complex leadership behaviors into micro-skills you can practice. It means identifying what you’re currently unconsciously doing so that you can consciously try something different. Any leadership skill can be broken down into these micro-skills that you can deliberately practice, much like a skiing coach might tell you to practice keeping your weight forward in your boots.
So if you’re feeling stuck in your career, it might be time to consider talking to a coach who can help you identify what you can practice and learn in your body to change your situation.