By now, you have an idea why it’s important to provide leadership in your romantic relationship. You understand the difference between leading and being dictatorial. You also recognize the signs a woman gives when you’re not stepping up to lead as much as she’d love you to.
But how do you handle a situation where your woman simply won’t let you lead? What causes it, and what’s the way out?
To get answers to questions like this, the first thing you should know is that, in many ways, your relationship will be a mirror of YOUR leadership. Therefore, the most crucial aspect is how you are leading yourself in your life.
Do you have healthy routines? Do you have a structure that you abide by? Are you disciplined? Are you doing the things that you ultimately want? Can you make healthy, sound decisions for yourself, your finances, health, well-being, career, or your business?
Another critical question is: are you honoring your commitments and practices?
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You could boil it down to this: how are you actually allowing yourself to be positively influenced by yourself?
Answers to these questions will indicate how you’re influencing, leading, and creating direction within yourself as a man.
Your answers will also determine if a woman will see your leadership as worthy enough to be followed. Because when you think of it…
If you’re not influencing, leading, and creating the right direction within yourself for YOURSELF, how can the woman in your life trust you to direct hers?
Not happening.
So, it goes without saying that if you want her to follow your lead, lead yourself first!
And if you notice that she has refused to follow your lead, instead of creating a situation out of it and making things worse, start leading yourself. More often than not, she’ll naturally move into a space of allowing.
One last (and critical) thing to point out is…
When we’re not keeping our word as men, we’re obviously not maintaining our commitments and our practices, which means you’re also less able to make healthy, strong decisions for yourself and create direction.
The way most men compensate for this, unfortunately, is to try and control their partner. They begin to judge their actions, criticize them, try to make decisions for them, and force them into what they believe should be happening.
As I explained in the previous chapter, this is NOT leadership. This is a dictatorship. This is an authoritarian trap that a lot of men fall into. And it’s almost like the more out of control that you feel as a man, the more you feel the need to control your partner.
It should go without saying this can be very detrimental. It erodes the trust within the relationship, builds resentment, amplifies shadow behavior, and ultimately leads to the end of the relationship.
So, in a nutshell, relational leadership starts and ends with leading yourself first!