Leaders Aren't Born, Or Are They_

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to Lead on Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive coach to Global Leaders and High Performers. Each week I'll publish a solo cast where I'll share my top high performance habits and methodologies to supercharge your life and career. If you enjoy the show, please take a short moment to subscribe and leave a rating and review. I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show.

There's no such thing as a born leader. Or is there? I want you to just think about that for a moment. Have you ever heard someone say, oh, that's a naturally born leader right there. They're the natural leader. They were born that way. Well, look, I believe that every leader has to be born. We have to be here in the world to be a leader, right? So yes, every leader is born. However, I do not believe people are born with leadership skills. They are developed, they are learned and they are honed. Right? If you think of growth mind versus fixed mind, a fixed mind person will never be a great leader. They may be in charge of managing people. They may have titles like CEO. That does not make them a leader. A person with a fixed mind believes that you either have built in innate leadership skills or you don't. A person with a growth mind, they can be great leaders and they can get there very quickly and develop rapidly. Why? Because a growth minded person simply believes that any skill can be developed, any trait can be nurtured. And when you think about it, that is the basis of great leadership. For a moment, just I want you to think, who do you know is a great leader? Who do you know that does great things, leads people, is well respected, carries themselves with dignity, has lots of empathy? Who are they? Write their name down or just think of them for a moment. How do you think they got there? Was it one great leadership book that shifted them forever? Was it they went to a leadership event and they came away and they Knew everything. Is that how you think they got there? Or do you think they got there through a lot of failure, a lot of introspection, journaling, learning? Do you think maybe they've read hundreds of books across different topics of human behavior, psychology, leadership, equipping people? Do you think maybe they've went to multiple events, maybe had mentors around them? I bet any great leader worth anything, if you start to peel under the layers, you'll see that there's commitment and incrementalism is part of their DNA. What do I mean by that? Look, if you want to be a better leader, if you want higher performance in any area of your life, then you must embrace incrementalism. And that's the act of knowing, I'm headed towards something greater than where I'm at right now, but I can only get there through small incremental gains. That's right. Dave Brailsford, Sir Dave Brailsford had this idea of marginal incremental gains, the 1% rule some of us might call that. He worked with the British Olympic cycling team. They weren't going so good. And he started to implement this idea of, okay, what are the number of things that we need to do well to be excellent? So for you, no matter what industry you're in, what position you're in, you know, whether you're in sales, marketing, doesn't matter, what are the different skill sets that you need to become great at and mindsets? All right, what are they? Write them down. Next, I want you to challenge yourself to go, how can I become 1% better at those week in, week out, even day in, day out? What would 1% better require of me? Just to be that 1% better, to be more present, to be more patient, to be more purposeful. How could I lead on purpose and be 1% more committed to that every day? That law of incrementalism, knowing that incremental gains every single day will lead to something great. It's just a fact. It works. Yes, you're going to hit roadblocks. Yes, you're going to have obstacles. Yes, you're going to have days that don't go so great. But if you're committed to being just 1% better, asking 1% better questions, listening 1% in a deeper manner, you're going to get great results only if you stay the course. So many grits have got so close to being at the peak of their leadership, of their performance, only to give up. Why? Because they weren't committed to that 1%. They got overwhelmed. You know, we've seen it with great athletes. We've seen it, you know, with people in philanthropy, they get burned out to. Do you want to be the person who burns out halfway to your goal? I know you don't. That's why you're listening to this. That's why you're invested in your own leadership. So I'm going to really challenge you to think about how can I commit to These small little 1 percenters, the incremental gains. I want you to write down those different skill sets and mindsets that you need to measure and manage. Because if you get that right, I mean, you're on an incredible trajectory. But it's all done in small little moments. Don't overwhelm yourself. And people often say, you know, if you want to climb a mountain, how do you do it? One step at a time. There's no sprinting it. There's no leapfrogging. You do it one step at a time. So I'm going to really challenge you to think about that. Try to embrace that level of incrementalism to get to your outcome in a gradual and smooth fashion. Rather than a big sprint and then you're knackered. Big sprint, then you're knackered. A great example of this done poorly and then done well is Captain Scott and Roald Amundsen, both heading to the South Pole, trying to be the first humans to get their teams to the South Pole in Antarctica. Now, Captain Scott, I'll not tell you the full story, but essentially he said, look, on good weather days, because Antarctica is not well known for sunny beaches, on good weather days, we're going to, we're going to sprint, essentially. We're going to move fast, we're going to move far. On poor weather days, we're going to hunker down and eat and stay warm. So essentially burn through the fuel. Roald Amundsen, on the other hand, said, every single day we will commit to a 15 mile march. That's every single day. Good weather, bad weather, indifferent weather. But every day we'll do an incremental little step, little chunk every day. Now, we all know Roald Amundsen popped his Norwegian flag on the South Pole weeks before Captain Scott arrived. And in the end, Captain Scott and his entire team perished on the ice. That's what it cost them. What's it going to cost you if you don't do your incremental 15 mile march every day? And your 15 mile march is different than mine, which is different than Joe blogs, which is different than person across the road, you need to figure out what it is you want and move towards that because that's purposeful leadership in your own life. If you're running an organization, same goes are you being intentional and are you leading on purpose and committing to incrementalism if you want to stay in the game? And trust me, the greats, the great organization, the great teams, they stay in the game longer than their competitors. Their competitors burn out long before them. For you to stay in the game, you, your team, your family must commit to incrementalism, gradually moving forward one step at a time, one day at a time, and getting the right support around you. At all of my leadership events, I'm encouraging people to find a great mentor, find a coach, commit to regular reading, listening to podcasts, watching YouTube, all these different things that can inspire you and help you just 1% to move in the right direction. So if this was valuable, please hit subscribe, share it with a friend. And I want to encourage you to get out there and lead your life on purpose.

Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button and I'd love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks and leaders, it's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.