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?