There is no passion to be found in playing small- in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. – Nelson Mandela
About 350 years ago, the story is told, a shipload of travelers landed on the northeast coast of America. The first year they established a townsite. The next year they elected a town government. In the third year, the town government planned to build a road five miles westward to the wilderness.
In the fourth year, the people tried to impeach their town government because they thought it was a waste of public funds to build a road five miles westward into a wilderness. Who needed to go there anyway?
Here were people who had the vision to see three thousand miles across an ocean and overcome great hardships to get there. But in just a few years were not able to see even five miles out of town. They had lost their pioneering vision.
This story in some ways embodies what can happen to leaders when they “arrive” at certain levels of success or accomplishment and settle for where they are. And instead of blazing new trails and creating new opportunities, they are content to stop and smell the roses without any thought of moving forward.
You may be in a place in your leadership where you feel that you are in a rut or have grown stagnant. Would you even know that you have or what that looks like? What are some of the signs that you have a settler’s mentality when it comes to your leadership? Here are five for your consideration.
You stand in the way of change
A leader with a settler’s mentality stands in the way of change. He or she not just longs for the ‘good ole days’ but still has that mindset and to some extent prefers it. While one can certainly appreciate the past one must not live or stay there.
John Maxwell once said, “Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.” And so long as you stand in the way of change, you will be like the early settlers in the story above who made a three thousand mile journey across the ocean but lack the vision to move five miles out of town. You can stand in the way of change and be a settler, or change and be a pioneer.
You don’t have a personal growth plan
A leader with a settler’s mentality is in many ways a leader who has grown stagnant. In other words, they’ve stopped growing. Your growth and development as a leader have no endpoint where you’ve arrived and you know it all. If you are not learning and growing as a leader then you are settling.
When you embrace a growth mindset and have a personal growth plan you can break out of that settler’s mentality. It will invigorate you and it will add value to your team. If you’re not growing you are not moving forward. And as a leader, you can’t afford to settle. With growth comes more growth. Don’t settle for where you are, grow to where you want to go. Click To Tweet
Others have moved on without you
Another sure sign that you have a settler’s mentality as a leader is that, well, others have moved on from you. And this is not necessarily because you are not a likable person, but because they’ve outgrown you. They’ve outgrown you not necessarily because they are more talented or gifted, or possess a greater skillset. They’ve moved on because you’ve stopped growing.
Take a look around you. If those closest to you never stay close to you for long, this might be a sign that you’ve settled for too long.
You’re afraid to take risks
Settlers tend to only move when they know it’s safe. If you are a leader whose afraid to take risks then you might have been one of the townspeople opposing the road out of town. Life is full of risks and as a leader, you have to be willing to take them. Click To Tweet
This doesn’t mean that you throw caution to the wind and that you recklessly make decisions, but so long as you never make them, you will always be a settler. Dare to dream, dare to take risks, dare to bet on yourself.
You’ve stopped dreaming
The by-product of a settler’s mentality in your leadership is evidenced in that you’ve stopped dreaming. When was the last time your dreams kept you up at night? Have you lost the passion that you once knew? When you give up on a dream or when it begins to fade, you begin to settle.
When you stop dreaming, something inside you stops growing. A settler’s mentality has no vision of the future beyond their current surroundings.
Are you settling or moving forward?
©2022 Doug Dickerson
