While my bestie is lounging by the pool, I find myself deep in thought this morning. The topic that has captured my attention is “Roadblocks.” It coincides with a recent training session I attended, where the central themes were goal setting, momentum, and commitment to action.
In the realm of business, we often become our own biggest obstacles. Despite being well aware of our weaknesses and challenges, we consistently avoid taking action to address them. Rather than proactively seeking solutions, we rely on excuses like “That’s just the way I’ve always been” or “I’m not good at X.” These self-limiting statements keep us stagnant, preventing us from actively pursuing personal growth and honing our capabilities. This pattern of avoidance becomes our blind spot, hindering us from overcoming weaknesses through decisive action.
In coaching circles, there is an ongoing debate about whether to solely focus on strengths and ignore weaknesses. However, in the context of the tourism industry, where many businesses are led by owner-operators and rely on versatile, multi-skilled teams, it is essential to acknowledge and address the factors impeding our progress.
Understanding what holds us back, as well as what propels us forward, is key to ensuring the success of both ourselves and our teams.
While day-to-day operations demand attention and the development of our team members’ skills, today I want to emphasise the significance of self-leadership—the foundation for effective leadership of others and successful business leadership. Here are some crucial self-leadership skills to cultivate:
- Self-care: Prioritise your well-being to maintain balance and prevent burnout, ensuring that both your personal and professional relationships thrive.
- Attention to detail: Devote careful attention to the intricacies of your tourism offerings, elevating them from ordinary to extraordinary.
- Discipline: Cultivate the ability to prioritise tasks, stay focused, and avoid distractions, enabling you to complete essential activities and seize opportunities.
- Time management: Master the art of prioritisation, efficiently allocating your time to maximise productivity, even in the face of unforeseen challenges.
While self-leadership is fundamental, leading others and building high-performing teams requires a distinct set of capabilities. These encompass assertiveness, effective listening, delegation, process management, and more. Furthermore, when it comes to business leadership, the challenges become even more pronounced: strategic agility, influencing others, negotiation skills, a relentless drive for results, fostering mutual accountability, managing vision and purpose, and a host of other essential competencies.
It is essential to recognise that the pursuit of success is not solely about identifying strengths and weaknesses. Rather, it involves a holistic approach encompassing self, others, and business leadership. By evaluating our performance in these areas, we can determine where we excel, where improvement is needed, and how to continue evolving.
Building a thriving tourism business with a highly professional team requires a clear vision, a well-crafted plan, and the ability to adapt. This journey is not linear; it is an ongoing process with no fixed destination. However, by setting goals along the way and equipping ourselves with the necessary leadership skills, we can turn our vision into reality. I sincerely hope that you possess the vision, plan, and skills to navigate this journey successfully and inspire your team to join you on this remarkable adventure.
P.S Whenever you’re ready… here are 4 ways I can help you develop and work on your business leadership capabilities:
- Grab a free copy of Smash Indecision and Overwhelm, 4 Steps for Better Business Leadership E-book
It’s the road map to overcoming doubt and indecision, how to deal with “overwhelm” to improve your business leadership capabilities. —Click Here - Join the Tourism Business Leader’s Facebook group and connect with like-minded leaders focused on building highly effective teams
It’s our Facebook community where smart leaders get to learn more about creativity, leadership and performance for tourism business success. —Click Here - Join our Tourism Pro-Team Program
Helping tourism business leaders develop their skills to improve engagement, accountability and performance of the team. If you’d like to work with me so you can stop being reactive, have the difficult conversations and drive performance to get the results you want and know the business need then…message PRO to me here and I’ll get you all the details. - Let’s get the Whole Team Together
Would you like a different perspective and someone else at the front of the room or on zoom/teams to lead regular and consistent team building, accountability, and engaging learning experiences, that drive results and outcomes for individuals, teams, and the business? If you feel a little challenged with everything going on, maybe sounding like a cracked recorded saying things repeatedly, or actually not 100% how to motivate and inspire the team, given the current nature of business, it may be useful for us to chat. Message TEAM to me here… and tell me a little about the business, your team, and what you’d like to work on together.
