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Have you ever wondered what leadership development activities you can start today? Have you wondered what would help you become a better and more effective leader at work? Have you ever asked yourself if there is more you could be doing?

If you have, you are not alone. Many new leaders wonder what they could be doing to start stepping into their new leadership roles. And the great news is that there are many effective things you can start doing today.

5 Leadership Development Activities You Can Start Today

1. Self-Awareness

The first leadership development activity you can start today is bring self-awareness to your behaviors, your feelings, the words you are speaking and the thoughts you are thinking. Start asking yourself questions like:

  • What am I thinking right now?
  • How am I feeling?
  • Why am I choosing to do my less important tasks first?
  • What was I thinking when I said that?
  • Why do I feel this way?
  • Why is this my priority?
  • Are my priorities aligned with my goals? If not, why not?
  • Is the way I am choosing to spend my time aligned with my goals and priorities?

Once you develop some self-awareness, you will start to have more insight and understanding into why other people around you are making the choices they are while also developing more compassion for the choices other people are making.

Download the free guide, 3 Ways to Feel Less Overwhelmed at Work.

2. Read Books on Leadership, Communication and Personal Development

The next leadership development activity you can start today is to begin reading books on leadership, communication or personal development. Reading books is a great way to learn new tools and concepts to improve skills that are important for new leaders.

Most leadership books are broken in to small chapters that have practices for you to apply as you are reading so even if you only read a couple of pages a day, you will still get a great benefit.

3. Send An Appreciation Note

Send someone a note of appreciation. Part of being a leader is delivering negative AND positive feedback and starting to practice the skill of giving appreciation now will pay dividends in the future.

Being able to express gratitude is an important skill of an effective leader. But, if expressing gratitude is new to you or something that you haven’t done very much in the past, it may feel vulnerable and uncomfortable.

By starting today and sending a note of appreciation to someone today, you will get better at it and feel more comfortable in the future expressing appreciation.

4. Get Organized

Spending time getting organized is time well spent because if you do it right, it will save you time in the future and will make you much more efficient at completing your tasks as well as give your brain more willpower and energy by not needing to make decisions in the future.

Start by writing down everything that you need to get done. Get it out of your head and onto paper. Then make a loose schedule of when you are going to do all the things that are on your to-do list. The first step of this process is to clear your head so that you don’t have to expend mental energy always thinking about all the things you need to get done. The second step is to organize things in a cohesive order that makes sense and give your brain some direction on when these things will get done.

5. Think About Your Vision For the Future

The most successful people are the ones who know where they want to go. Knowing where you want to go keeps you laser-focused on your goals and moving in the right direction. The best way to think about the vision for your future is to ask yourself insightful questions.

Answer the question for yourself: where do you want to be in one year from now? 5 years? 10 years?

Are the things you are doing today helping you get to where you want to be? If you were to remake all the decisions in your life, would you still make the same decision?

Conclusion

While there are many things that go into developing leadership skills, these are five leadership development activities that you can start today to help you become the leader the you want to be.