KATRENA FRIEL

In my 15 years training leaders and managers, one of the amazing things that I found across the board, was that they are insecure and lack confidence.

 

Managers are generally planning to change or desperately want to eradicate, that feeling of being inadequate and constantly feeling like an imposter.  The imposter syndrome is a real thing and holds managers back, wasting time and energy when they could be getting on with doing the job.

 

Another thing I noticed, was that most managers are promoted to managers because they were originally great technically (not people managers).  Things are changing a bit now, however not enough has improved over the last 20 - 30 years as it could of, if individuals and companies had invested in formal leadership and management training and coaching.  If managers could invest in their development from the start of their career, they would be way, way more effective as managers and save a lot of time and money, by not destroying staff through their ignorance.  So a lack of formal management training is what makes managers insecure, lack confidence (self belief, self worth, self assured) and feel like an imposter.

 

Makes sense why they feel that way, however it is easily fixed through personal and professional development.  But hey, I'm bias right????

 

After my two days Leadership Management Masterclass, most managers say to me (thinking that they are giving me a compliment), "I wish I knew this stuff 20 years ago".  My answer to that is, "why didn't you???".

 

What I hate about training and development, is everyone is waiting for the company to pay!  In most cases you will be waiting around a long time.  Why don't people invest in themselves?  It is a good deal, you get the benefit for a lifetime, the company only gets the benefit while you work there. All the most successful people, invested in themselves.  They didn't wait around for someone to pay.  They are called "Activated Life Long Learners", coined by me.  These people make up only 10% of the world's population.  Meaning, proactive with their personal and professional development. These people are the high performing, self managing types. They invest in themselves and love to learn.

 

The rest of the world’s adult population are called 90%ers (Life Long Learners). Those that are reactive with their development. They will only upgrade, or update their skills and mindset when they have been retrenched, sacked or miss out on a promotion. These people also, only go to training or coaching if the organisation pays for it. They would never pay for their own development, they think it is someone else's responsibility to train them. They don’t understand that the benefit is to them, who will leverage the training for many years to come.

 

Which One Are You? 

 

There is good news, if you’ve had the realisation that you have been reactive with your development. You can shift quite easily into being an activated life long learner, by taking responsibility for your career and being curious about your true capability and potential.

Image what you may be capable of and what you could achieve if you had experienced great training events from the beginning.

The reason most people are not proactive, is because they didn’t have a good school experience, and came out of school without a love of learning.

That is unfortunate, however we were all subjected to boring classes throughout our school life. Activated Life Long Learners, simply didn’t use that as an excuse to not find out how learning could be fun, interesting, amazing, incredible, dynamic, life changing, inspiring, motivating and self perpetuating, driving you on to the next level and the next level of development, quickly and easily.

 

If you are saying to yourself, geez!!!  Who cares!!!  Then you are going to be a 90%ers, which is where most people sit, it is called "main stream" for a reason.  The 10%ers are exceptional and what I like to call "sparkly eyed people", you know the ones, that 90%ers roll their eyes at.