We can choose what kind of leader we want to be. Leadership starts with behavior. Anyone can think to themselves "I want to be a leader," but I'm going to talk about a few specific behaviors you can use to start leading today.
(Again, leading is not about being pushy or being the loudest person in the room. Leading is about taking responsibility for offering choices to people and for bringing out the best in yourself and in others.)
How do you become a leader?
The first step is to start getting proactive.
When you show up to an event, do you just show up without a plan of what you expect to talk about or what you want people to feel as they walk away? A proactive leader takes 60 seconds before they go to think about what are some of the topics they can talk about today, what's in the news, what's trending, what do people in this group want to talk about?
They ask themselves:
- How do I want people to feel?
- Do I want them to feel liked?
- Do I want them to feel entertained?
- Do I want them to feel attracted?
When was the last time you did this?
Have you ever done this?
Most people walk into work chewing some day-old bagel and shuffle over to their computer.
What if you took 60 seconds before you walked in, summoned an incantation ("What Would Ramit Do Right Now?"), and decided how you want people to feel around you?
Your day would be completely different. You would be taking the first step towards being a leader.
Get proactive. Plan your strategy even for 60 seconds, so that when you go in, you're not depending on others to entertain you — you're starting off ready to go by adding value to others first.
This is true for where to eat, what movie to see, what to do this weekend. There are a million examples.
In fact, a lot of times it doesn't even matter what the decision is, it just matters that someone speaks up and says, "Let's try this."
So, let me give you three scripts that you can use — make them your own — to become a leader by offering specific suggestions and recommendations:
- "Take a look, there's that bar right around the corner. How about we go there?"
- "That new Mexican place opened up in the Mission, I heard it was really good."
- "Let's sit over here, it's quieter."
Notice how each of these scripts are gentle, delicate, and also position you as a leader.
You can see yourself saying these whether you're a man or a woman, whether you're 50 or 25. In fact, you can even see yourself saying them to someone who is much more senior than you.
That is the power of being a leader. You don't have to flex your muscles all the time, but you can simply make suggestions knowing that it's adding value, so other people don't have to think.
Being a leader is just one aspect of social fluency. I want to show you how to overhaul your social skills completely, including how to get out of awkward situations and how to become unforgettable — all with the exact words to say in each situation.
