Good leadership is leading beyond ego, guest Thor Olafsson

Leadership is all about going beyond ego and leading from within. It's about leading from the inner self. When you are connected with your inner self and are connected to that, you lead differently. Healthy self-esteem helps in empathetic leadership. The outer ego is the one that creates and drives self-comparisons. Comparing and contrasting with everyone around you.In leadership what one sees is too much of ego driven behaviour. For example, one identifies a threat and reacts with a defensive strategy. That defensive strategy will differ from one leader to the other. The commonality is that both are fear driven. This is the key.The question to ask is how can you live and lead without being fear driven?The answer lies in transcending that fear by getting into your inner self. Starting with acknowledging one's strengths and weaknesses and being self-aware. Secondly, having a purpose and staying present to that purpose.However, our humanness often drives us to make decisions which, in hindsight, we may regret. This occurs as we end up reacting through our ego because we are nervous under pressure. One of the keys is being able to be humble with oneself and others. It's this humility that helps to keep the focus on one's purpose and to accept failure and know oneself better. That leads to increased self-trust. That is, trust my ability to stay present to my purpose.This realisation reduces moments of being ego driven and increases the time one is being true to one's real self. Going from this to the next stage of questioning if one is still holding back, one looks at if there's forgiveness. Forgiving self and others for whatever has happened in the past that's actually got one stuck in the ego driven behaviour. Ego is formed from the patterns we've created for ourselves through our experiences and environment. We carry those patterns into our work and leadership roles. Getting over it involves taking a hard look at the story of our self that we've repeatedly told ourselves and then deconstructing the bits that aren't reflective of what our real inner self is. Leading from beyond ego is about self-understanding, being purpose driven, being humble and trustful. It's about shedding those layers of ego that had got put on through the years by going through forgiveness, and ultimately, being compassionate. This results in gratitude coming up.Put together, this drives one to become more of a servant leader.For enquiries on Thor's book, contact him at:https://www.linkedin.com/in/thor-olafsson-b4a6a5b7/https://www.linkedin.com/company/beyond-ego/