“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs

We spend a lot of time in this space talking about leading organizations.  Today, I’m thinking more about us as leaders, and what it means to lead ourselves.

I know a lot of leaders who work really hard and put a massive amount of energy into being the leader that someone else told them they’re supposed to be.  They read a book, or listened to a podcast, or went to a conference, or did any number of things to learn what it meant to be a great leader.  Then, they went back to the office to try and do those things.

That paragraph isn’t meant as an insult to books or anything else.  As leaders, we should be looking for knowledge and support wherever we can get it.  That said, at the end of the day, each of us has to be the leader that we were uniquely created to be.  If we try to be anything else, we’ll be miserable.

Each of us is wired in a unique way.  We have different strengths and weaknesses, different Working Geniuses and Frustrations, different personality types, and so on.  When we try to lead in a way that’s reflective of our uniqueness, it can be both energizing and wildly successful.  When we try and lead the way that worked for someone else, it’s exhausting and usually an epic failure.

Think about yourself, both as a person and as a leader.  What really energizes you?  What really frustrates you?  What are you exceptionally good at?  What do you typically struggle with?  What are you doing when you feel like you’re on top of the world?  What are you doing when you feel miserable?

Obviously, there will be times we have to do things we don’t enjoy or that don’t energize us.  I’m not trying to suggest otherwise.  I’m just saying that we have to lead the way we were designed to, not the way we read in a book or saw online.

Take some time this week to really focus on who you are and what you really want to be as a leader.  You might find that you’re already on the right path for you, and that maybe a few tweaks are all you need.  Or you might find you need to do a complete one hundred eighty-degree turn and go in the opposite direction.

Whatever you find, pursue it.  You will never be the leader you were meant to be by trying to be somebody else.  You need to be you, and everything else will follow.