Mark Silverman shares a powerful story and how it provoked him to really look into his behaviors and motivation behind those behaviors and how it affected his success. He shares powerful productivity insights so you can be a better leader and create a team that generates success.
Who Is Mark Silverman?
Mark Silverman is no stranger to overcoming adversity and mastering his own overwhelm. When he was 27, he was homeless, 135lbs, and living in his truck. 10 years later, he was a millionaire.
Mark is on a mission to take the lessons learned along the way to help others define and achieve their own successes. He brings his leadership experience, together with his coaching training to help his clients achieve sustainable success in all areas of their business and lives. He is the author of the bestselling book “Only 10s 2.0 – Confront Your To-Do List, Transform Your Life” which has sold over 75,000 copies to date.
Recovering People Pleaser
Being nice as a leader is great – until it’s not. And while you may think being a people-pleaser will serve you well, it actually does the opposite. As a people-pleasing leader, expressing your true needs, wants, and opinions will be somewhat of a struggle. It also makes leading people challenging because people-pleasing makes it hard to accept criticism, have difficult conversations, or deal with team members that are less concerned about pleasing you.
According to Mark, if the thought of disappointing others terrifies you, then you might be too nice for your own good. Start by saying no to things that come at a personal cost. Stop agreeing with others when you know deep down you disagree with their opinion.
The Hyper-Responsible Leader
Many of Mark’s clients are leaders he calls the “hyper-responsible leader.” This is someone to whom everything is important, everything has to be taken care of, and nothing is perfect unless it goes through him/her. Unfortunately, such leadership is rarely sustainable. The obsession to constantly take responsibility is more of a self-esteem issue and far from what makes a compassionate leader.
If you find yourself in situations where your team rewards you for being considerate or “saving the day,” your approach to leadership will fail you. Not only do you deny your team the opportunity to fail, but you’re also depriving them of the chance to grow. Just because there’s a problem doesn’t mean it’s your responsibility to fix it. Sometimes your team needs to fail for them to come up with better solutions. Your only duty is to coach and delegate; the rest will take care of itself.
Fail But Fail Well
If you ask high-performing leaders what makes them better at leadership while helping others achieve more, they’ll probably mention the wisdom gained from failing. Understandably, when we think of leadership, we don’t often relate proper leadership with failure. However, as Mark demonstrates, one of the hallmarks of the best leaders is falling and knowing how to fail well. All successful people have failed at something—but they never regard themselves as failures. They take risks that sometimes don’t work out but remain positive and committed throughout.
As a leader, you must allow your team to fail. Stop staying up until two o’clock in the morning overlooking projects that don’t need your input. If you’re really intentional about leadership, you need to understand that failure is the most powerful problem solver you’ll ever have in your arsenal. Use it to teach your team about survival, renewal, and reinvention.
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