A lot of people feel that you’re on a career path in management but want to be more than just a manager? I felt the same.
A lot of people find themselves in a management position and don’t know what to do next to become a great leader? I felt the same.
I realised management wasn’t the right way of thinking for me, leadership is. I realised that managers are not what’s needed. Leaders are.
I started out in my career in civil engineering by random after being introduced to the industry after college. I had always had a logical calm mind with a strong work ethic but it’s not like I always wanted to be a civil engineer and follow the Project Management route. To be honest I didn’t even know what a civil engineer did, let alone did I ‘know’ at the age of 11 that I wanted to be a Project Manager. As I went through my career I found myself in a low level management position. It was then I discovered that I enjoyed what I was doing. I enjoyed the thrill and excitement of helping people grow, getting to know people, doing different things every day and delivering. What was my biggest realisation was that I worked for a lot of bad managers and didn’t want to behave like that.
After a couple of years I realised that this was what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to manage people I wanted to do something different. So I started to learn. I started learning from managers and the people I worked with but what I found most profound was that I was learning ‘what not to do’. A few years later I found that I had a lot of knowledge and experience and was now managing more and more people on larger projects. But still I didn’t want to manage, I wanted to do something different.
At the age of 27 I went to a seminar with Dr Rohan Weerasinghe, recommended to me by my brother. This seminar was about how to Communicate With Impact. I had never been to seminars like this and was sceptical at first but the lessons I learnt were game changing. What I didn’t expect was that Dr Ro would do exercises which enabled me to get out of my head (thinking) and connect with my core values (feelings). Dr Ro helped me realised that I have been doing all the things I wanted to do already, just didn’t realise it. It was then I understood that I didn’t want to manage, I wanted to lead.
I wanted to be a force for good. I wanted to help people. I wanted to be that person that when my team were down I was the one they looked too. When the pressure was on I was the one who shielded my team from that pressure so they were free to perform at their best. I wanted to be a great leader.
Since then I have been researching great leaders of past and present, watching great public speakers and truly influential and inspirational people to learn what it takes to be a great leader.
Doing all this has allowed me to learn and grow as a leader. Doing all this has enabled me to be in a position to share my knowledge to make a difference. I wanted to share this story so that it may help another. I would love to hear your story below.
How to reference this article
- Toor, J. (2019). How I grew as a leader? Available at: https://pmgrowth.co/how-i-grew-as-a-leader?
Inspiration
- Dr Rohan Weerasinghe (2019). Communicating With Impact.