3 practice challenges to grow your executive presence.

Read time: 3 minutes.

Ever met an elite athlete that doesn't practice?

Me neither.

The sport of leadership is similar. You can't succeed in a leadership role if you don't practice leadership behaviors.

But practicing at work is hard. It's risky. It's also time-consuming. That's why most leaders don't do it.

Today, I'm sharing three low-risk leadership challenges you can practice outside of work before trying them at work.

1. Practice becoming assertive

Pushing back at work is challenging. Most of us lack this skill, especially if we’ve never had to do it before. Here’s a fun, low-stakes exercise to help you build this skill:

What’s the worse that could happen?

Worse case, you get rejected. Best case, you get what you want.

Oh, and if you don't like that bottle of red, you get to send it back. The only rule is you do it kindly, thoughtful, and not obnoxiously.

The goal of this exercise is to assert your needs. It's to voice how you feel. Kindly but firmly.  

2. Practice listening

Some (most?) of us are below-average listeners.

The good news is we can improve our listening skills. The bad news is no amount of blog posts will help if we don’t practice.

Here’s one of my favorite ways to become a better listener. 

This exercise will teach you to build your listening muscle. If you can learn to listen to people you disagree with, you’re going to supercharge your listening skill.

Remember: Listening does not mean agreeing.

3. Practice asking follow-up questions

Curiosity is a leadership superpower. One way to cultivate your curiosity is by asking questions before jumping and giving your two cents. Here’s a fun exercise for you.

Here are examples:

• “Tell me more.”
• “What happened next?”
• “What else did they say?”
• “This sucks. How did that make you feel?”

If you’re dying to jump in and give advice, try this instead:

• “Would you like a suggestion?”
• “Would you like to hear what I think?”

When you ask questions before jumping in, two things happen: You make the other person feel heard, and your advice lands better because you have a better understanding of what they’re going through.

Practicing leadership isn’t just confined to the workspace. If you look around, you’ll see opportunities everywhere. The world is your leadership lab. If you choose to make it. 

Keep leading.

Ali