On November 9th, 2020, flightunit is launching the incredible 7-Day Leadership Challenge. The challenge involves seven straight days of developing and practicing crucial leadership skills with the aim of turning at least 1 million people across the globe into better leaders.
Being a great leader is about spreading positivity and inspiration to everyone around you. The best leaders in the world are highly skilled and motivated people who do their best to raise the spirits and the standards of everyone they interact with. Everyone has the potential to be a great leader, and the first step to becoming a leader is working on yourself.
flightunit has designed the 7-Day Leadership Challenge around seven crucial skills for being a great leader. Each day focuses on developing a specific skill, so that by the end of the challenge, you’ll have a full leadership skillset that you’ll be able to make the world a better place! Join the challenge and build your leadership skills right away!
Here’s a breakdown of every skill that the Leadership Challenge will help you build:
1. Communication
To be able to lead, you need to able to listen.
Communication involves two main elements: speaking and listening. To be an effective speaker, make sure to follow the golden rule: “quality over quantity.” When you’re communicating with anyone, whether a friend, a family member, or a co-worker, always try to speak as simply and as clearly as possible. If your conversation partner doesn’t seem to grasp your meaning, try to explain yourself in a different way.
To be an effective listener, pay attention and ask questions. Humans are easily distracted—it’s easy to zone out when someone else is talking, but being a good leader means paying close attention to your conversation partner so that you make sure you fully understand what they’re saying. Asking good questions in conversation can also help you understand, and it shows that you’re interested in what they have to say.
2. Discipline
All the world’s best leaders have discipline, from Prime Ministers to CEOs to Professional Coaches.
Discipline is what allows you to avoid temptation and to keep yourself focused on accomplishing your goals—it’s the key to constantly moving forward in life. Discipline involves using your willpower to make short-term sacrifices for long-term benefit, whether the benefit is for your health, your mind, or your spirit.
While discipline is one of the toughest leadership skills to develop, it also comes with a massive reward. Once you have discipline, you’ll suddenly find it easy to study for that extra hour or to say no to those donuts. More importantly, you’ll be able to use your discipline to make sacrifices for your leadership. You’ll be able to take the focus off yourself and move it to making the world a better place for everyone.
3. Humility
One of the common pitfalls for leaders is that they become too arrogant—they lose sight of what’s important in life and why it’s important to be a leader in the first place.
All great leaders need humility. Leaders need to be able to recognize that, while they may have a position of knowledge or a position of power, they’re no more entitled than anyone else. Humility allows a leader to recognize that everyone has value and that everyone makes mistakes, so that they’ll be able to learn and grow alongside their community as they strive to improve.
4. Growth
The best leaders in the world constantly strive for growth. If the aim of leadership is to inspire and guide others to become better people, then a great leader should always be improving, too.
Make sure to pay constant attention to everyone you speak with and every experience you have, and always look for ways that you can grow from those interactions and experiences. Growth isn’t limited to accomplishments, either. Great leaders make sure they’re always growing physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. If you want to change the world through leadership, make sure you’re always growing into the best version of yourself that you can be.
5. Comfort Zone
Great leaders are always leaving their comfort zone and trying new things.
Improvement can only come from areas outside your comfort zone—the more you put yourself in uncomfortable but educational experiences, the easier it’ll become to try new things in the future. Being able to step out of your comfort zone is crucial for facing challenges. Great leaders need to be able to adapt and take risks in the face of obstacles so that they can quickly and efficiently overcome their barriers.
Push yourself to do extra chores tomorrow. Go for a jog later tonight. Force yourself to ask three insightful questions during your next zoom meeting. If you constantly step out of your comfort zone, you’ll soon be able to fearlessly lead your community through anything.
6. Gratitude
An often overlooked but essential leadership trait is gratitude. It’s easy to get too focused on the goals that you’re chasing and to forget all the blessings that you already have.
Take time every day to think about all the ways that you’re fortunate in life, including simple things like having a roof over your head and food on your dinner plate. Practicing daily gratitude can provide surprising happiness and motivation that will keep you energized and moving forward.
Gratitude is especially important for leaders. You can’t be a leader if there’s nobody to lead! The world’s best leaders stay grateful for the people who help them and the people who they help. With gratitude, leaders can constantly spread love to everyone around them, which is a natural way to help people get motivated and improve!
7. Patience
Being a leader involves interacting with people and helping them through challenging situations, which can sometimes get frustrating. The best leaders in the world all possess incredible patience, which is the ability to remain calm, focused, and logical in the face of difficulty.
Practicing patience will help you overcome any obstacle that you face. Moreover, demonstrating patience will provide courage to everyone around you—they’ll think that if you can stay calm and collected in the face of adversity, then they can, too!
flightunit’s 7-Day Leadership Challenge has devoted a full day to developing each of the 7 crucial leadership skills. Completing the challenge only takes a week, but the skill development shouldn’t stop there! You should continue to practice communication, discipline, humility, growth, expanding your comfort zone, gratitude, and patience for the rest of your life.
For now, the 7-Day Leadership Challenge is a fantastic place to start. Once you complete the challenge, turn your attention to your friends, family, and community, and lead them to lives of fulfillment, health, and happiness!
