Six Leadership Principles that will Stretch your Comfort Zone

Posted by admin on May. 27, 2015  /  PRSA Mid America, Events, Career Development  /  Subscribe 0

“In order to be your best and step out to try something new, you need a good person to hold your rope.”
Manley Feinberg – award-winning international speaker, best-selling author and avid rock climber

"When you have a sense of what’s possible, you can’t settle for anything less."

“That’s why you work in public relations,” said award-winning international speaker and best-selling author Manley Feinberg at the PRSA St. Louis May luncheon.

As PR professionals, we continually face rising expectations from our clients and those we serve. In the day-to-day chaos, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut. So, how can we gain the clarity and the courage to try something new? How can we continually grow our influence and impact, yet still have something leftover at the end of the day for the people in our personal life?

Manley helped engage, equip and inspire attendees at the PRSA May luncheon with strategic and tactical ideas to think outside the box and stretch their comfort zone (through rock climbing analogies).

Six personal leadership principles Manley shared, include:

1. Current Climb
   • Only 1 current climb (focus on the most important)
   • Do it 1st and for at least 5 minutes every day. Visibility drives velocity, so post-it notes help you stay focused.
2. On Belay
   • Who do you need on belay today and who will you belay today? (A belay provides security by paying out or drawing in rope - apply this to your professional life)
   • In order to be your best and step out to try something new, you need a good person to hold your rope.
3. Lock Your Carabiners
   • Stop chasing behaviors and start challenging beliefs. (A carabiner is used in rock climbing to connect to a rope for safety)
   • What beliefs do you need to disconnect from to reach your next summit?
4. When you Ask the Right Questions, you Get the Results you Expect
   • What are your high leverage questions to gain clarity?
   • What question, if asked daily, could change everything?
5. Anchors to Help you Climb out of your Comfort Zone
   • What does your worst case scenario look like? (If anything fails, the anchor will hold it together and be your backup option)
   • When you put the pen to paper, fear separates from facts.
6. Celebrate the Summit
   • Celebrate big but brief
   • Leverage your perspective to site possible next summits and call back to your last summit when you are stuck in your next struggle.

To continually challenge yourself by working outside of your comfort zone, there are three key elements to keep the momentum: Clarity + Courage + Conviction = Momentum. Manley encourages everyone to tap into at least one of these three elements every day.

What leadership principle will you adopt to help you get out of your comfort zone?

Download a PDF of the six leadership principles to keep the momentum alive in getting out of your comfort zone.

This post is courtesy of Paul Spooner, PRSA St. Louis Communications Director and Blog Editor. He is a PR Supervisor at Osborn Barr, an agricultural marketing and communications company with offices in St. Louis and Kansas City. Paul earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism and communication studies from the University of Iowa. You can find him on Twitter @paul_spooner.

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