How Accomplished Security Leaders Have Developed a Personal Leadership Mindset

Session Leader: Ray Bernard

A Leadership Mindset

A mindset is a way of thinking about things. A leadership mindset is a way of thinking about leadership.

As internationally renowned business guru Peter Drucker famously explained:

  • Leadership is about doing the right things.
  • Management is about doing things right.

In the leadership and management training provided by most organizations, leadership and management are treated as separate realms. The truth is that all managers must lead, and all leaders must manage.

How do you lead when you are not in the upper echelon of the company? Not by using the traditional position and authority based leadership practices.

John C. Maxwell explains it best: “Leadership is influence. Nothing more, nothing less. Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.” Maxwell asserts that 99% of all leadership occurs not at the TOP but in the MIDDLE of the organization. So that means you can start leading (or lead more) right from where you are NOW in the organization.

“Leaders become great”, Maxwell says, “not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others.” This is personal leadership, and it requires a type of mindset that works in the situations where security practitioners find themselves.

The reason we are talking about your personal leadership mindset is summed up by these three quotations from Maxwell:

  • The only one you should compare yourself to is you. Your mission is to become better today than you were yesterday.
  • Your life today is a result of your thinking yesterday. Your life tomorrow will be determined by what you think today.
  • Successful people don’t have any fewer problems than unsuccessful people; they just have a different mindset in dealing with them.

This session provides you with a simple personal leadership mindset framework that you can use to start updating your leadership thinking. It works in a way that takes advantage of your existing knowledge, skills, and experience and facilitates your continuous growth as a leader and manager at a pace that is comfortable, effective and fits your current situation.