Great leaders develop certain mastery by developing certain habits. One of the habits great leaders develop is reading. If you’re not a reader, you’re not a leader! If you’re not reading, you’re not leading…

Reading gives you new perspectives you never had. Reading gives you new insights, tools, and approaches you have never heard or thought about.

Without new perspectives, insights, tools, and approaches, you get stuck where you are right now. You don’t want that to happen to you 🙂

If your desire is to go to the next level in your leadership, read from those who have mastery in the areas where you would like to grow…

Don’t forget to check our website www.proleadership.org and like our facebook page to enjoy upcoming facebook live sessions…

I was live on Facebook talking about how great leaders develop certain mastery by developing certain habits. One of the habits great leaders develop is mindfulness. Mindfulness is not just a function of the mind. On top of being mindful of what you think, you should also be mindful of your words, behaviors, and actions.

Ask questions such as does what I think right now reflects who I truly am (or who I want to be) and what I stand for? Does this word or this behavior or this action align with who I’m and my values?

Be also mindful of whether your words, behaviors, and/or actions build or tear down your self, your people, or community. Be mindful of the full impacts of your words, behaviors, and actions and if you feel that they negatively affect who you’re, your and your company’s brand, and the people around you don’t say or behave or act that way.

From my experience, I can tell you that being mindful all the time and in every circumstance is hard. However, I came up with certain approaches to increase my mindfulness. For example, whenever I get an email or text that irritates me and tempts me to respond right away with anger and without thinking (mindlessly), I would say to myself, let me respond to this in an hour time. By then, I will most probably have enough perspective and mindfully write the response that reflects who I’m, and according to my core values showing respect to the other person even if I may not agree with what they said.
Another tip: When somebody offends me or treats me badly, I put myself in their shoes. Not always, but mostly, I immediately start to experience empathy for the person. I right away remind myself how myself too imperfect and have said or behaved or done similar things in the past against other people without being conscious the impacts of these against the other person. I give people the benefit of the doubt believing that they may not consciously aware how they impacted me.

Here is how I’ll start the email or text in response to an unpleasant email or text 🙂 …I understand that this is important to you. I know how it feels like… Then, I may express my feeling afterward in writing while still showing respect in my words, adding some emoticons, etc.

Of course, I don’t always succeed but I’m making some progress. What about you? Watch the facebook chat (https://www.facebook.com/PROLeadershipGlobal/videos/428949774641155/). It gives you some new perspectives and encourages you to start to be mindful. You cannot lead successfully, in the 21st C, without developing self-awareness and mindfulness.

Wherever you may be in your mindfulness journey, keep working on it, and take it to the next level by practicing mindfulness on a consistent basis.

You may also consider reading more about these. The first chapter of my third book ‘Soft Skills That Make or Break Your Success’ (https://successpws.com/?page_id=2254) provides some great insights, tools, and approaches to develop your self-awareness, and in turn, achieve personal mastery. The latter is key to lead others successfully. Remember, leadership begins with self…

If you haven’t done it by now, go ahead & ‘Like’ PRO Leadership’s Facebook page to get alerts about future Facebook chats: https://www.facebook.com/PROLeadershipGlobal/ 

While the 21st C is bombarding us with excessive info some of which are ‘mindless’, maybe we have one savior that may rescue us, our profession, community, and/organization- to be a little bit more mindful. I don’t claim that I’m better than anyone about self-awareness or mindfulness. I’m work in progress and invested in increasing my self-awareness and mindfulness consistently.

I was live sharing why is this important, what are the challenges, what individual professionals, leaders, teams, and organizations benefit from creating a personality and culture of mindfulness, and how to develop mindfulness, and more, I arranged this because I saw interest from many people during a recent Summit where I was a part of. The theme was The Future of Leadership and our panel’s topic was Mindfulness in leadership. The summit was organized by SOAR Community Network. I thought you too may want to know a little more and get inspired to take your awareness and mindfulness to the next level, and in return be in charge of your life and be more productive.

To attend future live chats, ‘Like’ our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/PROLeadershipGlobal/

I’ll go live tomorrow morning EST time to talk about the main discussion points from yesterday’s panel. We talked about what is mindfulness; why is it important for individuals, communities, and corporations; and how can we develop mindfulness.

I’ve invested in this one of the most important leadership competencies all leaders regardless of your culture, position, & field- Self Awareness. Mindfulness starts 1st with self-awareness. Self-aware and mindful leaders know who they truly are, their strengths, limitations, and have fewer blind spots. But, they haven’t got at this stage of growth by chance. You too can get there if you’ve not yet.

I disclaimed at the start of the panel that Mindfulness isn’t just what we think. It also takes to be mindful of what we say, how we behave, and mindful of what we do and how that impacts our mission & core values plus others including the future generations.

If your desire is to take your self-awareness and mindfulness to the next level, join me in this 30 minutes Facebook Live tomorrow. You can ask questions before and or during the session by going to the comment area.

First thing first, go ahead & Like PRO Leadership’s Facebook page to get updates of the live session: https://www.facebook.com/PROLeadershipGlobal/ #Mindful #SelfAware

If you care about the future of leadership and the need for the 21st C leaders to be mindful and self-aware, join the Founder of PRO Leadership and other leadership experts as we share some insights, tools, and approaches that empower you to lead in this information age characterized by fast-paced change filled with lots of opportunities and challenges.

Do you want to go ahead of the cover? Do you want to be always up to the task of leading the 21st C by equipping yourself with the right mindset? Then, grow, stretch yourself, learn, be up to the minute…

The height of your leadership and the impact of your service is highly dependent on your constant growth. No growth, no impact! For more, click here…

8:30 – 9:00:   Registration and Networking

9:00 – 9:05:   Welcoming, Amha Woldemeskel, Coordinator

9:05-9:20: Opening remark, Daniel Koroma, Business Liaison Officer, Montgomery County Gov’t

9:20 –9:30: Introduction and Background, Dr. Assegid Habtewold, Facilitator

• Understanding the mission of PRO Leadership
• Recognizing goals of the Initiative
• Explaining the New Breed Leaders of Africa Program

9:30 –10:15:   Mind set, Facilitator

• Understand the consequential impacts of mind set in leadership
• Recognize the kind of mind set it takes to succeed in transforming a society
• Learn the process of how mindset is formed and developed

   10:15 – 10:30: Morning Coffee Break

10:30 – 12:00: Skill set (Part 1), Facilitator

• Acknowledge the essential leadership competencies necessary to lead successfully
• Acquire the necessary insights, models, and tools to develop the key skill set
• Practice & improve some of their leadership competencies for immediate impact

   12:00 – 1:00: Lunch Break

   1:00 – 2:30: Skill set (Part 2), Facilitator

2:30 – 2:45: Afternoon Coffee break

2:45-3:30: Character set (Part 1), Facilitator

• Understand the crucial place of character in leadership
• Learn how character is formed and nurtured
• Discover and begin showing commitment for their core values

3:30 – 3:40: Small group discussion and signing the pledge

• Awardees sharing one thing they learned and do differently in one minute
• New Breed Leaders of Africa enter into a vow by signing the pledge

3:40 – 4:00: Graduation Ceremony and closing remark, Coordinator

• Certification award and closing remark by Dr. Clemmie Solomon, Dean of Student Engagement, Montgomery College

4: 00: End

Parking info:

You will be fine to park in the East Garage in any unmarked student/visitor spaces. There will be no parking permits needed. Please do NOT park in spaces that are labeled for “Faculty/Staff Only”. Any student spaces, levels 3-5, in the garage are fine. Also, as a friendly reminder, any metered spaces around the campus are controlled by the county parking enforcement and not the college.

One of the features that make the Bridging the Leadership Gaps in Africa Initiative unique is its support system such as Training of Trainers (TOT) and Monthly cohort meetings.

The first graduates of the New Breed Leaders of Africa program met on Sep 15, 2019, to conduct their 1st monthly meeting. They covered different programs such as book review, presentations, training on goal setting, auditioning, feedback, and more.

Leadership competency cannot be developed overnight by one or a couple of days of training alone. It takes constant growth. In this regard, the first cohort in Addis (Cohort A1, A stands for Africa) conducted its first monthly cohort meeting to grow together, and also prepare to duplicate themselves by training their peers. That is how we could reach the 1 million New Breed Leaders of Africa mark in one generation. Graduates attend our TOT program and then go out to deliver the same program in their organizations and communities, and in turn raise more New Breed Leaders of Africa. A huge milestone…