Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is power”- Lao Tzu
“I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.” William Ernest Hanley
The above quotes provide a foundation of understanding that at the core or base of leadership development is self-leadership. Leaders exist in every company and at all levels; from the CEO to middle-level managers, to supervisors, and down to the individual, which means that everyone is a leader. It doesn’t matter the position one holds – whether they are junior associates leading a brainstorming meeting or middle managers leading others to a pitch or senior management heading to the board meeting. One needs to understand the need to develop oneself to be able to play their role in the whole team and achieve the desired team or corporate outcomes.
The aspect of self-leadership is also important for personal growth and fulfillment. It puts everyone in the driving seat of their personal and professional outcomes.
This article looks at leadership in totality and covers both personal and professional aspects.
It is underpinned by the understanding that you cannot lead others without leading yourself.
This article covers
- What self-leadership is
- Key aspects in the development of self-leadership
- How self-leadership supports the development of team/corporate leadership
WHAT IS SELF–LEADERSHIP?
According to Bryant and Kazan 2012, “Self-leadership is the practice of intentionally influencing your thinking, feelings, and actions towards your objectives.” It involves developing a sense of who they are, what they can do, and where they are going, which includes the ability to influence communication, emotions, and behaviour to bring about impact.
Self-leadership is about you and your qualities and your willingness to examine yourself and change those qualities for the better. It involves one being intentional in everything they do. To be empowered to own the outcomes of your life decisions and outcomes.
This process involves being empowered to step back, process what is going on, and decide how to position yourself to play your part.
FIVE (5) KEY ASPECTS TO HELP THE DEVELOPMENT OF SELF LEADERSHIP
- Self-awareness
The tendency for the individual to focus on and reflect on their psychological processes and inner experiences as well as their relationship with others. Having self-awareness requires stepping back now and again and making choices that enable you to move towards the desired goals and outcomes.
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” Aristotle
- Self–learning is the ability of one taking the initiative to diagnose their learning needs, goals, and outcomes. This looks at looking for options that are available and taking action.
- Self Confidence is knowing your strengths and abilities and taking action and developing skills to become more confident. This develops from self-awareness and self-learning.
- Self-efficacy is the belief that what comes your way, you can handle.
- Self-regulating or self-management
is the ability to modulate one’s attentions, emotions, and behaviour to a given situation to achieve a goal. With self-regulation, we can utilise all opportunities as they come.
All the above aspects, if well developed, will result in inner resilience and flexibility to bring about the outcomes desired.
KEY QUESTIONS
- What frame (beliefs & attitudes) am I operating from?
- What frame would I like to be operating from?
- What do I have to learn from all the experiences and feedback?
- What am I aiming for or where am I heading?
- What change do I like to bring about and why?
- How can I show up consistently to be the person I want to be?
The absence of self-leadership is reflected in behaviours such as reactivity, randomness, blame, and victim mindset.
HOW SELF-LEADERSHIP INFLUENCES TEAM OR CORPORATE LEADERSHIP
Leadership is a widely discussed subject and there’re many definitions of leadership.
According to Forbes, leadership is the process of social influence which maximises the effort of others towards achieving a goal. Tony Robbins defines leadership as the ability to influence, inspire and help others become their best selves whilst building skills and achieving goals along the way.
To Carmichael, Collins, Emsell, and Haydon 2011, leadership is strategic, focused on vision, and involves a strong element of building trust and emotional engagement with the followers. Leadership is distinguished from management as management is operational, focused on goal achievement, and more directive of those managed.
Self-leadership should be at the heart of any leadership development initiative. It is a daily journey. The more one focuses on this aspect, the more successful they become in not only leading themselves but also others.
According to Mintzberg, leaders need to have their inner leadership, a transformational relationship with themselves in which they consciously dedicate time and resources to educating themselves, and continue to grow and develop to meet the challenges of the changing world.
Today’s leadership goes beyond just being good at what you do. It involves balancing it with attributes such as empathy, listening and accountability (aligned with all Stellar Woman magazine interviews and surveys). It involves being human and understanding people whilst leading them towards expected results. It is about balancing humanity with accelerated results. To achieve this, one needs to develop first from within. With self-leadership at the core, it becomes an inside-out approach that makes accountability to oneself the most important, and then moves to support accountability to shared values and vision.
With the inside-out approach, the individual can set the intention which will be supported by the key skills of self-awareness, self-confidence, self-learning and self-efficacy, and self-regulation which will eventually lead to influence and impact in form of results. The results become feedback to learn from.
The need to develop self-leadership is becoming paramount as responsibility and accountability have been noted to be two important aspects lacking in the workplace today. Self-leadership develops autonomy (ownership of choice) which leads to greater responsibility and accountability.
With self-leadership, a leader will be able to support the team to great results by defining the goals and clarifying the path to those goals, and ensuring that obstacles are cleared or dealt with.