Another month is almost complete. Let’s celebrate with a cup of your favorite springtime tea and a quick conversation on today’s blog! Remember to use your tea as a self-care practice for the remarkable life you’re building this year with grace and ease.

March celebrated our Makeover Madness theme and I pray you’ve made some consistent changes to strengthen the remarkable life you’re co-designing with God. As we makeover our lives we also must take a look at our leadership.

Have you ever considered what it means to be an effective leader?

Understanding this will help you show up as remarkable women who live and lead well and take your leadership to heart wherever you go.

Leadership starts with us. We have to learn how to lead ourselves first before we can authentically lead anyone else.  

When we lead, we’re called to give hope and life. And we don’t take our leadership cues from the world; we take them from God’s Word by looking at men and women who led effectively, like Samuel in 1 Samuel 7:3-17, Esther in Esther 4:1-17 and definitely Jesus in John 13:1-20.

But sometimes leadership also brings challenge into our lives as it exposes our flaws. I remember a time when I lost sight of what leadership was.

I pulled together the courage to ask an older woman to mentor me.

My life was chaotic at the time: I was homeschooling all three of my kids, my husband was traveling 75 percent of the time, and we were launching our church.

My mentor met weekly with me. But it was very difficult for me to pull my life together for those meetings. I always ran late, felt hurried, and often was overwhelmed.

One particular day we met and of course, I was late. As usual, she was waiting for me. When I sat down she said, “Cynthia, I don’t think this is going to work. I don’t feel like you’re taking my time and this commitment seriously. I’m not going to be able to continue in this relationship. But I want to wish you well.”

That was a painful blow to me. It was humiliating. I felt rejected. But I learned a powerful lesson from her ending our mentoring relationship: If you don’t lead your life well, not everyone is going to love you enough to see the good you still have in you and come alongside to help you work through your stuff.

I want to give you what I didn’t have back then. I want to help you grow in your remarkable leadership. But you need the right ingredients to become the right leader. Here are five essential leadership ingredients you must have:

• Confidence: You need to give people a reason to believe in your ability to lead effectively. Confidence inspires hope, is developed over time, and quite necessary for leaders. 
• Trustworthiness: People have got to believe you are who you say you are when no one is looking. Underpromise and overdeliver so you show up on target every time. 
• Enthusiasm: You must have excitement about what you see around you and what you see in those you are leading and influencing. Enthusiasm is contagious! 
• Steadfastness: Even when nobody else shows up make sure that you do. Your willingness and your ability to still be present is what makes you a remarkable leader. People know that they can trust you because you are dependable. 
• Focus: Satan is looking for a way to devour you as a leader. Stay consistent so you don’t water down your leadership. Live with honor and integrity. Fight the fight for leadership.

So, let me ask you some questions:

What ingredients do you have cooking in your leadership right now?

What areas of your leadership life do you need to makeover?

What are you going to do differently to move you from where you are to where you want to be?

Share your thoughts below with a comment and let me know.