I want to talk to you about paying the price. At every level of leadership and at every level of influence and responsibility there will be a price that you have to pay. Until you recognise that and learn how to manage it, you will never grow in your leadership. Leadership expert John Maxwell says this, “In order to go up as a leader you need to give up.” There is always a price to pay at every level of increase in your leadership. As your responsibility increases, so too does the cost of your leadership or the price you have to pay for that level of responsibility. As your influence goes up, the toll will go up and you have to reckon with that reality.

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Many times, young leaders or people who are not leaders, think that leaders get all the perks and advantages but fail to recognise that there is a huge cost and a huge toll to pay for those levels of responsibility and commitment. So I just want to talk about the three things that you have to keep in mind if you are going to learn how to pay the price and continue to grow in your leadership and become more effective.

1. Accept that there is a price to pay.

2. The cost gets higher with the more influence you have.

3. Leadership takes a personal toll on you.

Accept that there is a price to pay.

The first thing is this, you have got to accept that there is a price attached to your leadership. There is no such thing as leadership without cost. There is no such thing as influence without a penalty and there is no such thing as responsibility without a toll. What I mean by that is, that every level of your leadership, every level of your growth, every level of your influence will require you to give something up. It will require a sacrifice of you, it might be longer hours, it might require you to move to another city, it might require you to do some things that you did not want to do, for the short term, so that you can get the long term outcomes. It might require you to give up doing one activity that you were really passionate about for the sake of the bigger picture.

You might find that with the increase in influence,  you also get an increase in criticism. That is very true. Sam Chan talks about this and says that leadership is pain. When you lead you are going to get criticism, you are going to get opposition and that is a cost; it is a price that you have to pay.

So the first thing you need to reckon with as a leader is to accept that there will always be a cost. Where I see many leaders get derailed – and I know when I was first developing, this is one of the things that used to really hold me back, whenever I hit adversity, opposition, or had to pay a price for what I wanted to do, I would get indignant or feel like it was not fair. I would think, “Why am I not getting a break ? What is this opposition ? Why are people coming against me like this?” Why do these things happen to you?  Well, I will tell you why, because you are a leader and you want influence and you want to grow in your influence. 

The reality is this, it is going to happen. I had to get to the place where I recognized that no matter how high I go in my leadership, no matter how long I am a leader, I am always going to have to reckon with opposition and pay a price. Then I was able to actually steer my path with more focus and a little more ease. If all you ever do is complain or get indignant when things go wrong or things come against you as a leader, you are never going to level up. You will never be given extra responsibility. So, accept the fact that pain, opposition and penalty is a part of leadership and it is the part of leadership that must be paid if you would like to go to that next level of responsibility.

The cost gets higher with the more influence you have.

The second thing you need to understand is, the cost gets higher with the more influence you have. You may be a beginning leader or a middle level leader and you may think that things are going to get easier if you get the top position. You may think, “If I could just get that job, then I would not have so many problems”. Think again. More responsibility equals more problems. In order to continue growing in your leadership, you also have to be prepared to pay a much higher price, the higher you go and you will have more opposition. You will have more challenges to deal with, you will have more conflict that you have to navigate and work through, that is the cost of leadership.

Sam Chan says this, “In every organization there will be 10 percent devils that you have to reckon with.” No matter how much you grow, you are going to still have 10 percent of people who will oppose you; so,  if you are in an organization where you are leading 100 people, well, you have got to contend with 10 people that may make life very difficult for you. You may look at somebody that has got an organization of 10,000 people and say, “Oh if only I had their organization I wouldn’t have these problems.”  Think again.  They have probably got a thousand people they have to deal with on a regular basis that are problematic or difficult. The cost always goes up and you have got to not only accept it but also be prepared to pay the price as your influence grows.

Your leadership will usually be capped at the point that you are able to successfully cope with the level of opposition or level of conflict you are facing. When you are not prepared to work beyond that level of conflict then you will probably put a lid on your leadership and not go any further.  That is ok if you are happy at that level. If you want to keep growing you have to be prepared to deal with the level of conflict at the level that you advance to because it is only going to keep going up from there.

Leadership takes a personal toll on you.

The third one is this, leadership takes a personal toll on you. The more responsibility you get, the more influence you have. The more people will expect of you individually as a person. One of the things that I find with leadership – and I am certainly not at a level where I am under huge public scrutiny- but as my leadership has grown, there are always people that want to take a price from you personally. They either want to criticize you personally, slander you, tell lies about you, say things about your family even if they do not know your family. This is the price you pay for being in a position of influence. 

You have to learn to deal with that stuff with grace, humility and integrity. Do not fight back, do not retaliate, do not gossip about other people. Keep your own integrity as the personal cost goes up. You need to keep your cool because that will affect your credibility with others. If you do not, there is a personal toll and it will affect your family as well and so you need to manage your emotions and measure your responses. Work on it. At whatever level you can handle the pressure of conflict and criticism, that is the level of leadership you will grow to.

There is nothing wrong with saying, “This is as much as I am able to take, this is where I am going to stop”. We all have to make that decision for ourselves. Do not complain about not getting opportunities to go up. If you want to rise higher in leadership, grow up, accept more responsibility, be an influencer and be prepared to take the hits.

If you are not prepared to pay the price, then be happy with where you are. However, if you are prepared to pay the price and prepared to do the hard work of navigating it and becoming a more effective leader under pressure, then what you will find is that you get bigger and bigger responsibilities and opportunities to influence others in your leadership. 

So those are my tips for understanding the price attached to leadership. There is always a price you are going to have to pay, so you better accept it. You better learn to understand that the price always goes up. Learn to understand that there is a personal toll and you have to navigate that well.

I hope that was really helpful for you, make sure you share it with someone that you think would also benefit. 

If you would like to learn more about effectively growing in your leadership, why not check out our FREE Goal setting guide. See below for details.

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