The Third Step to Real Leadership: Fulfillment

After building a case for change, the next step is to bring that change to life. Welcome to the third stage of the Leadership Enrichment LIFE-cycle (LEL-c): FULFILLMENT.

This stage is about translating your well-laid plans into tangible progress by taking the

right action for the right reasons. It's about turning purposeful action into real leadership growth.

This stage addresses the critical "how" of leadership enrichment. It ensures that the changes you make are not just busywork but lead to meaningful development for you and your organization.

The Emotional Connector: ACTION

The energy for this stage comes from its "goal-seeking" emotional connector: ACTION. However, as Take Your Lead emphasizes, not all action or activity is productive. To ensure your actions are worthwhile, they must be guided by a clear Action Sequence Model:

Virtues as Values: First, consult your core values to ensure your motives and means are sound. The best reason for enriching your leadership is not self-actualization, but to better serve

others.

Vision & Strategy: Develop a complete plan with long-term strategies and short-term actions to achieve your goals.

Support Structures: Ensure the right systems are in place to support your strategy, which includes abandoning old habits that no longer work.

Skills: Identify and acquire the knowledge you need to execute your plan successfully.

The Performance Waypoint: GROW

When purposeful action is taken, the result is the performance waypoint for this stage:

GROW. Growth means developing to maturity, increasing your influence, and becoming more acceptable and attractive as a leader. This requires adopting a "growth mindset," where you see yourself as a fluid and adaptable work in progress, not as a fixed entity.

This stage is also where you strength-test and validate your Leadership Platform. By seeking feedback—for example, by repeating a 360-degree assessment—you can measure how much you've grown and confirm that your actual impact is aligning with your intended impact.

You've learned, you've changed, and now you've grown. In our final deep-dive post, we'll explore the culmination of this journey in Stage 4: Excellence.