Creating Confident Leaders - Get Support, The Power of The Mastermind

This week I have been thinking a lot about the type of support that leaders need to help build and maintain their confidence and I wanted to talk about the power of masterminding.

What do I mean by masterminding?

I mean finding a group of fellow leaders who share similar ambitions to you, are willing to share challenges, create thinking space, give support and help you in your personal journey as you help them with theirs.

The concept of masterminding is not new, great entrepreneurs such as Andrew Carnegie talked of the importance of belonging to a mastermind group as one of the most vital ingredients in their success over 100 years ago AND there are hundreds of business leaders today who know that this is still one of the most important secrets to leadership success.

One of my most successful programmes is my Master Leaders programme which has been running since 2012 and it is built around a small group of leaders masterminding together to learn together, assist each other with their challenges, and help one another to succeed.  This years’ programme concluded a couple of weeks ago and the conversations we had at our celebration event, reminded me again of how powerful these groups are. Almost all of my master leader groups have decided to continue to work together as they find that the level and blend of challenge and support that come from this type of activity is one of the most valuable things they have ever engaged with.

So, what is a mastermind group?   Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich), defined a mastermind in the following way:-

“A mastermind group is a peer-to-peer mentoring concept used to help members solve their problems with input and advice from the other group members. ... In his books, Hill discussed the idea of the Master Mind, which referred to two or more people coming together in harmony to solve problems.

The core value of a Mastermind Group is the synergy of energy, motivation, and commitment as well as the willingness to learn and grow together”.

What does a good mastermind group do for you? 

• Replenishes and inspires you;
• Helps you to literally think better;
• Creates a safe space to share ideas and challenges and find solutions through the “group mind”
• Builds emotional resilience and support;
• Stretches you;

Your mastermind group will be your best thinking partners.  I know this both from personal experience of being in my own mastermind groups and also from running mastermind groups for my own coachees.

The reason I am so passionate about steering you towards masterminding is  because I know that it really works for leaders in terms of protecting and enhancing their thinking time, building their emotional resilience, inspiring them towards their next steps, turbo charging their learning and truly increasing their levels of success.

When I ask leaders I coach to find and protect thinking time themselves its often a struggle to commit to protecting that time.  Sometimes people do it initially and then its falls off, sometimes they don’t do it at all and very rarely someone actually manages to do it consistently.   HOWEVER, when they join a mastermind group 87% of the leaders I coach protect the time.

Why? 

Three reasons:-

They are committing to other people, and don’t want to let their thinking partners down;

Thinking like this feels great and is tremendously inspiring;

It's an investment and everyone wants to get the value back for their investment. 

The biggest area of self sabotage for leaders is isolation.  If you are isolated, overloaded mentally and trying to do everything yourself YOU WILL FAIL. The good news is that mastermind groups change that and people turn things around with the help of their group really really quickly.

So where do you find mastermind groups?

Look first at your networks. Networking is different from masterminding, but networking can easily lead to masterminds.   A few really good networking companies are heading into the masterminding arena.  Look for one that offers this.

Look for coaches who run mastermind groups and see if there is one being run in your area that you can join. I do this as part of my coaching business and I know that there are other coaches and mentors who do the same.

Look online and see if any masterminding opportunities are being offered virtually.

Make masterminding a priority within your development and see how dramatically it impacts on your success.

Have a great week and think mastermind!

Warmest regards

Lois