5 Reasons Why Ego is Essential for Leadership Success

In today’s issue, I’m going to walk through 5 reasons that the ego is actually important to harness and how you can use it to drive success through your leadership.

As toxic leadership has begun permeating our homes, businesses, schools, etc., it’s crucial to maintain a healthy ego that’s in alignment with the best interests of you and those you lead.

That being said, there’s a fine line here.

An excessive or unchecked ego can often be extremely detrimental.

Let’s dive into the interplay between ego and leadership, and discover how it can actually help drive remarkable results.

Embrace self-confidence.

Listen, if you aren’t confident in yourself, you’ll likely find it really difficult to trust the decisions you’re making and setting a clear vision for both yourself and those you’re accountable to lead.

There’s a line from one of my favorite hip-hop artists, NF, that really strikes a chord with me as it relates to a healthy ego.

The line he drops is “if you don’t even believe in you, why would you think or expect anybody else that’s around you to?”

Read it again.

If you don’t even believe in yourself or the decisions you’re making, why in the world would anyone else hop aboard a sinking ship?

Your belief in yourself and your abilities is what inspires and motivates others around you to do the same.

Embrace your confidence. Step into the position you find yourself in and instill belief in everyone else around you while you’re at it. Heck, if you fail, you might as well go down swinging anyway, right?

Drive ambition and achieve goals.

As a leader, you set the tone.

Period.

If those around you are lacking ambition and drive, it’s often because they aren’t seeing it from you, their leader.

This one is easy to relate to children for me.

If my girls never see me clean the house, the laundry is never put away and our home is constantly in disarray, is it more or less likely that they won’t be motivated to do chores, keep their rooms clean, etc.?

Easy answer, right?

A healthy ego will act as rocket fuel for a leader’s ambition and drive to achieve goals and move things forward.

If that tone is set well by you, others will follow your lead.

When this really starts working well, competition will make its way to the surface which will ultimately lead to higher productivity and more innovation.

The best part is that it’s likely not even coming from you at that point.

Be resilient and take risks.

As a leader, we all know that the following two things are true:

Challenges are always on offense.

Change is constant.

Setbacks don’t define us. The character is made in how we bounce back and handle adversity.

The solves to the challenges often come with a high-level of calculated risk and uncover new opportunities which will require change.

Challenges are always opportunities if we can keep that in focus and choose to view them that way.

A healthy ego will pull from the first two points and will aid in confidently stepping into the risk-taker seat as we navigate through unchartered waters.

Inspire accountability and ownership.

As much as a healthy ego will inspire self-confidence, a solid level of work ethic & ambition, and allow us to find our resiliency so we can take risks, it will also remind us that, as leaders, it’s imperative that we take responsibility for our actions and decisions.

Accountability is key.

Our human nature tends to love praise and reject criticism.

But when we learn to accept that we are equally accountable for great outcomes and no-so-great outcomes, the world opens up so much more.

And much like setting the tone on the ambition side of things, when you set the example of accountability, others will begin to take notice and act with a sense of accountability as well.

Strength and confidence for others.

Perhaps the most important part of having a healthy ego as a leader is remembering that the first role of a leader is to help those around them get better and achieve their goals.

If you lean into your ego in the correct way, it will become contagious.

Confidence and positivity don’t take long to spread.

Before you know it, everyone around finds themselves speaking a little louder, being a little more bold, and believing for what’s to come.

You’d never want a superstar on your team who isn’t confident. You want someone you can count on to do what they need to do in order to push others around them to achieve a goal.

Push others around you to get better and find their own voice.

Well, I think this is a wrap for this Saturday!

TL;DR

1. Allow your ego to help you embrace self-confidence. If you aren’t confident, those around you won’t be, either.

2. Set goals, be ambitious to drive them to completion, and then achieve them. It’s that simple.

3. Your ego will allow you to become resilient and start taking bigger risks to move things forward faster.

4. Inspire others to take up accountability and ownership in what they’re doing.

5. Build strength and confidence in others.

5 pretty easy lessons to understand and will be super impactful if you read everything above!

See ya next time! ✌️