In the 1937 Disney classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Evil Queen is obsessed with being the best. Every day she stands in front of the magic mirror and asks, ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?'

It all goes swimmingly so long as she hears, ‘Queen, you are the fairest in the land'. It goes downhill big time, though, when she gets feedback she doesn't want to hear. One day the mirror responds, ‘Snow White is the fairest of them all' … and the Queen goes nuts. Snow White becomes the object of her hatred, and she plots to have the young girl killed.

It's a classic tale of good versus evil, and a lesson that it's not what's on the outside that's important, but what lies within us. Outwardly, the Queen is beautiful, but inside she is vain, insecure and filled with self-loathing and hatred for possible rivals (definitely a famine mindset!).

She's also completely unprepared for unwelcome feedback. It's a classic case of ‘shooting the messenger' (or in this case destroying the mirror then plotting to take out her rival). Workplaces are often competitive and political, and it can be easy to get caught in the comparison trap and to think that to get ahead you need to win, to beat all rivals, to be ‘the best'. Yet success in life, and at work, isn't about beating everyone else; it's about being your best, which means any competition should be with yourself.

Check in regularly to see if you are being your best, and if you like what you see in the mirror.

Mirror, mirror …

Throughout Part III, you've been challenged to close the gap between your leadership promise (what you want to do and be) and your leadership practice (what you're actually doing and being). This next step is where the old adage ‘What gets measured gets done' comes into play.

The legacy you create for your team members will be positive or negative, depending on the effort and dedication you've put into becoming an effective leader, and sustaining that effort.

Let's start by identifying the progress indicators you can use to continue to reflect on how things are going. As in the economy, there will be leading and lagging indicators.

Indicators will alert you to warning signs of decline, and potential and real progress.

Your leading indicators point to the progress underway because they track your leadership habits and practices, including, for example:

• spending more time with your team
• having more regular one-on-ones
• finding a better balance between focusing on task and focusing on people
• having more regular feedback sessions.

Lagging indicators, on the other hand, confirm that a pattern of change is in progress, or has been made (or not made). These are data sources. Lagging indicators may include:

• higher engagement levels
• a decrease in turnover
• increased productivity
• lower error rates
• less stress and sick leave or unplanned absenteeism in the team.

Lagging indicators will come from 360-degree feedback assessments, engagement and employee satisfaction surveys, employee staff indicators (such as turnover, absenteeism and sick leave) and key performance indicators (such as quality, performance, productivity, revenue and sales). Typically, they take more time to access and require a dollar investment, so may not be readily available.

It can be easy to manipulate data to tell a story that makes you feel comfortable, so for this exercise to be helpful, be open to what you see in the data and get curious about the possibilities and potential for further change and progress.

Progress takes time

Making progress isn't about one big thing you do. It's about the things you do every single day. Some will be tiny, others big; some quickly noticeable, some not.

Leadership development is an ongoing journey of discovery. The learning never stops. Equally, be prepared for progress to take time. While you may notice some shifts around the edges quite quickly, most change takes at least six to 12 months of sustained effort to translate into tangible benefits and outcomes.

Don't be put off or disappointed if progress isn't as fast as you'd like it to be.

One of my clients was a great manager, but it was only when she went through a formal feedback process that she discovered her leadership was failing. Her team and peers found her distant and hard to connect with, overly driven and ambitious, and too willing to say ‘yes' to the needs of people more senior than her.

Over a 12-month period she dramatically turned her profile around. She spent more time with her team, which helped them get to know her, and her them. She built deeper relationships with her peers and stakeholders, reaching out proactively to help them and connect. She shifted her approach and behaviour, and as a result how she was viewed as a leader changed.

Success comes more easily when you see the benefits it brings, and you can feel the positive energy and impact you are having. In fact, it feels so good you'll just want more of it. And why wouldn't you? When you know you are creating an environment where every person in your team can be their best — well, that's liberating and empowering.

But be careful of becoming complacent and falling back into old patterns of behaviour, particularly when you are tired and stressed.

You are creating new leadership muscle and it will take a while for this to become habitual.

Five traps to trip you up

As I did throughout my corporate career, and now in my executive coaching work, I often see leaders who are trapped. They know something's not working but struggle to pinpoint what it is. They are locked in a pattern of thinking and behaving and are fearful of change.

It often takes a crisis — getting fired, facing redundancy, a major illness or another life-changing event — that forces them to stop, reflect and recognise that it can't go on like this anymore. Obviously, you don't want this to happen to you, so you need to be aware of five traps that can trip you up.

1. The ambition trap. For leaders who are used to success and always doing well, success can be addictive. They don't know how to step back from striving for it, and when the pressure at work rises their solution is just to work harder and keep going. If this is you, you worry that if you take your foot off the accelerator you'll no longer succeed.
2. The expectation trap. For leaders who are constantly living up to the expectations that are placed on them by those around them, admitting they are struggling and overworked seems impossible. They are so focused on doing what they are expected to do, they never get around to doing what they can do. When the pressure gets too much, they hide the impact and never share how they are feeling. If this is you, you worry that if you admit you are tired and struggling people will think less of you.
3. The busyness trap. It was Socrates who said, ‘Beware the barrenness of a busy life.' Leaders who are caught up being busy and always ‘on' struggle to say ‘no', to slow down or to switch off. When the pressure gets too much, they are likely to explode as they are already close to burnout. If this is you, you will likely regularly sacrifice time with family and friends and even your health for work. Work comes first, and you see being busy as part of who you are. Be aware that this isn't a sustainable approach and eventually your body will force you to stop.
4. The translation trap. Many leaders have worked hard to get to their position, yet once they get there they find they aren't as happy as they thought they'd be. They feel like they are lost in translation: they wanted the role, but now they've got it the role doesn't fulfil or inspire them. If this is you, you'll feel like you have lost your way and your purpose. At the same time, you worry that if you change course you'll make the wrong decision, or that you don't know how to change because you think that what you currently do is all you can do.
5. The self-care trap. Many leaders get by on adrenaline alone, not taking enough time to care for their mind, body and spirit. They forget that putting their self-care needs first is a critical act of leadership. If this is you, then you are likely to feel run down, tired and overworked, and you say to yourself ‘I'll get on to this tomorrow', but tomorrow never comes. One day you'll wake up and find that exhaustion, adrenal fatigue or some other health issue stops you in your tracks.

These traps are not discrete and isolated. In fact, they frequently overlap. When you fall into one or more of them the impacts may include social isolation and dislocation, poor health outcomes, negative impacts on team members, deteriorating social and family relationships, and over time a negative impact on your career outcomes and therefore your career prospects.

Are you in danger of falling into one of these traps?
If so, what needs to change?

Culture check

As part of this reflection process, and being aware of the traps, it's important you look at how your organisation's culture is impacting you.

Every time you step away from who you want to be, ignore the problem and fail to treat the impact, you are deepening the risk of permanent long-term infection. As an inoculation strategy, you have two options:

1. Find a treatment strategy to minimise the impact
2. Find an exit strategy to remove yourself from the impact

Your treatment strategy involves determining how you can influence the organisation's culture in a way that supports you.

This might include, for example:

• talking with your boss about any impacts their behaviour is having on how you work. (Part I will help here.)
• finding time each day to centre yourself, and at the end of each day asking yourself, ‘Did I hold true to my vision and values today?'
• deliberately removing yourself from conversations or decisions that don't align with who you want to be.
• having a coach or a trusted colleague who can highlight when you may be about to sidestep (or have sidestepped) your leadership vision and values.

If there are no available treatment strategies (or you've tried them and found they don't work for you), and you want to ensure you retain your integrity and mental wellbeing, then you need to consider whether it's time to activate an exit plan from the organisation. This may not mean you move to another organisation; it may mean finding a new boss or role (my book Career Leap could help you with that).

This is a critical test of your willingness to live up to your leadership potential.

Be truly coachable

Being willing and open to new ideas, new possibilities and new ways of doing things also means being willing to test and learn from your mistakes.

‘A good leader,' Margaret Heffernan counsels, ‘knows she's not perfect and doesn't mind her team knowing it. People don't want perfection, they want consistency. Besides, knowing that you're fallible makes people trust you more … because they know you're human, just like them.'

It's not about being perfect; rather, it's about continuous improvement.

Andre Agassi was one of the world's best tennis players. Throughout his career, he had some amazing highs with spectacularly good tennis days, while on other days he would come crashing down.

In his autobiography, Open, he recounts a conversation with his coach Brad Gilbert. This was at a time when his game was faltering. His coach told him that his problem was ‘perfectionism'.

He said, ‘You always try to be perfect, and you always fall short and it fucks with your head. Your confidence is shot and perfectionism is the reason. You try to hit a winner on every ball, when just being steady, consistent, meat and potatoes, would be enough to win ninety percent of the time.'

Agassi learned the value of listening and being coachable. He pushed through the challenges, and accepted that to achieve his goals, he had to uncover what was holding him back, try new things and then forge through. And look where that took him: he eventually won eight Grand Slams!

You can't do this on your own, however. You need to surround yourself with trusted advisers and a great support crew.

Build your support crew

Who do you trust? Who do you turn to for guidance? Who can you safely share your struggles and challenges with?

It's imperative to have a support crew, who act as your trusted advisory board. These are people you can call on for advice, support, counsel, and objective and constructive feedback. It might include a former boss, a current work colleague, a mentor (either internal or external to your organisation) or your partner. They need to be willing to challenge you, to hold up a mirror to show you whether your assessment of your progress isn't too rosy or misaligned.

These supporters can play an essential part in helping you sift through the feedback and assess how you can use it to carry you forward. They can help reality check your interpretation, pick you up and encourage you to keep going if you find progress slow and hard.

They can call you to account when you aren't living up to your stated values and are sidestepping courageous conversations. And they can help if you reach a point where you feel stuck or trapped and things at work just don't seem to be working.

It's critical to surround yourself with the right support crew who will back you and challenge you.

Don't stop

Being a leader is a privilege, and with that comes a whole lot of responsibility. You get the chance to shape, nurture and encourage the leaders of tomorrow. How awesome is that?

So don't stop. This has been a big chapter of reflection and revision. You'll have noticed progress and identified where you want to do more. Perhaps you've needed to challenge yourself to step outside and look beyond where you are currently.

You may also have discovered that you have some work to do in the relationship with your boss, in which case you'll want to go back and revisit Part I.

Remember the wise words of Benjamin Franklin, one of the world's great polymaths: ‘When you're finished changing, you're finished.'