We leaders fight.

We fight for one outcome. And that outcome is:

Feeling DONE.

You know that feeling. That feeling of having crossed of all your To Do’s. YEAH! The feeling at the end of the workday that makes you realize that you’ve done it all. No files to look at, no emails waiting in your Inbox for a reply, no employees with whom you want to check in, no problems to solve. An empty desk, an empty office and an empty work mind.

Feeling DONE.

It never happens.

Yet, somehow, we have that as an outcome in our mind.

Reason?

I don’t know.

Because reality is when you’re in leadership, you’re never done.

The challenges never stop.

The next organizational change knocks at the door.

A manager leaves, another is hired.

A meeting is over, another follows.

Email inbox is empty, you leave your desk for 30 minutes and … guess what!

What we don’t realize is that the desire to feel done; the desire to have done all To Do’s is an outcome set by our mind. It’s based on the wish to be in control, to systemize, and to accomplish.

The secret to win the fight for the outcome of feeling done:

Is to accept that you’re never done.

As someone said before:

Even in the senior home, you’ll still have a To Do- lists. Probably a small one but still a ToDo-list.

So, the solution is to embrace the feeling that you’re never done.

That’s the first step.

The second step is to connect to who you are or want to be as a leader.

That triggers a different feeling than the Tick Off feeling.

For that reason participants in the UleadU-program focus on authenticity. Being an authentic leader doesn’t magically resolve your ToDo’s but authenticity takes care that you come from a place of creation and empowerment. It connects you to feelings of making a difference and showing up as a leader who you know you can be.

Let’s fight from now on not for the feeling of being DONE. Let’s fight for a different outcome: let’s fight for showing up as authentic leaders.