Designing Your Personal Leadership

Modern leadership is less about managing than motivating and empowering people. Both to fulfill their potential professionally and personally but also for the good of the work community or project team they are part of.

It can be considered a design challenge to design the transformation and development journey of your professional life. That is at least how we approach it at DDC. Everyone gets to choose one or more personal leaders once a year that has no formal power over you but helps you develop and realize your personal and professional goals and potential for the future.

We developed a canvas tool to accommodate these relations. The tool can both help the conversations get going and act as an overview of areas and questions to explore and work on, too.

The tool can be used in several ways:

1. You can use it by yourself to explore your inner and outer dreams and ambitions in your work life
2. You can use it as an excuse to start a guided conversation with your manager, mentor, or leader about your future goals
3. You can use it to lead your colleagues, friends, or family to fulfill and explore their potential.

The canvas is designed to accommodate different preferences for approaching your development. Some people feel most comfortable talking about themselves, their needs, dreams, and goals by focusing on what the external environment asks or demands from them. If that is the case for you, you should start exploring the canvas from right to left.

Other people feel more comfortable talking about their inner purpose, dreams, and needs and adapting them to their surroundings’ external environment and conditions. If you feel this way, it’s best to start filling out the canvas from left to right.

You must fill in the entire canvas, no matter your starting point.

The canvas parts

The middle part of the canvas is the body of the tool. The right and left sides are questions about who you are and what you dream of and believe in. The center of the middle part is where you state your ambitions for your development. So, what do you want to develop, and how do you plan to work on your development?

The upper and lower part of the canvas is the last thing you fill in. 

The upper part concerns the specific goals and milestones you want to commit to. So be hands-on and set realistic, measurable, and ambitious goals.

The lowest part is where you write who could help you achieve your goals. Who do you need to reach out to, share your goals with, or involve in your development? No one is an island, so consider both known and unknown helpers at this point.