Comparison Is Not a Leadership Strategy

Comparison isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Seeing what other people have achieved can give us ideas, challenge our assumptions and show us what's possible.

The problem begins when their achievement becomes our instruction.

When we're not clear about what actually matters to us, it's very easy to start using other people's careers, businesses, status or apparent success as our measure of progress. Before long, we can find ourselves working harder towards goals we never consciously chose.

In this episode of Scaling New Heights: Leadership at the Next Level, I explore the difference between useful comparison and comparison that starts determining our direction.

I also return to an idea from Episode 90: the difference between a goal and the outcome we hope that goal will create.

Because it is entirely possible to successfully achieve a goal that was never right for you.

We look at the exhausting cycle that can follow - comparison, borrowed goals, more effort, achievement, limited satisfaction and then more comparison - and why leadership confidence matters when we're surrounded by other people's apparent success.

I also introduce a simple three-part approach for interrupting the cycle:

Notice. Question. Choose.

And I leave you with three questions to consider:

• Would I still want this if I had nobody else to compare myself with?
• If I achieved it, what outcome do I believe it would create?
• Do I know what actually matters to me, and am I progressing towards it?

Comparison can teach us. It can challenge us. And it can broaden our sense of what's possible.

But comparison is not a leadership strategy.

Before you invest more energy in moving faster, make sure the direction is genuinely yours.

In this episode

00:00 Welcome and Topic Setup

00:53 When Comparison Turns Toxic

02:08 Define What Matters

03:18 Goals Versus Outcomes

04:28 The Exhausting Comparison Cycle

06:25 Confidence and Direction

07:38 Notice, Question, Choose

09:28 Weekly Reflection Questions

10:38 Closing and Subscribe

If you're finding it difficult to separate what you really want from what you've come to believe you should want, that's exactly the kind of thinking a coaching conversation can help with.

If you want a space to think this through properly, you can book a conversation with me.

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