Self-leadership is the practice of applying similar techniques that you use to influence and manage teams in order to manage yourself, your time, and your thinking. We try to get the best out of our teams to achieve shared goals. Self-leadership is about getting the best out of ourselves to achieve personal goals.
While applying the leadership techniques that we use on others to ourselves might seem easy in theory, it is much more complicated in practice. We will soon find that we are our most difficult, emotional, and uncooperative team member!
How often do we break the promises that we make to ourselves? How often do we let ego and emotions prevent us from doing what we know is best, and then regret it later?
Self-leadership involves not only having a clear, achievable, and measurable goal, and a well-planned strategy for reaching it. Self-leadership also requires us to develop certain qualities and behaviors. The following for are principal among them.
Emotional Intelligence
Often when we feel like we are out of control and acting in a way other than our rational mind would wish, it is because our emotions are in the driver’s seat. In particular, emotions such as fear, jealousy, narcissism, or lack of confidence can drive undesirable behaviours.
The best approach to preventing emotions from taking over is to understand them better, so that when they kick in, you have the tools to deal with them. When you know what is driving them, it is easier to identify when they are influencing us and take a step back.
Assertiveness
When we tell an employee or a child to do something, we expect them to do it. But when we tell ourselves to do something, we not only often fail to do that thing, but sometimes do something actively opposite or detrimental.
We need to learn to hold ourselves to the simple standard of following our own instructions and doing what we said that we would do, to the best of our ability.
SEE ALSO: How Effective Listening Can Make You A Great Leader
Honesty
We often lie to ourselves. It could be when we tell ourselves that we aren’t good enough to apply for a job. The reality is that we have a very good chance of getting that job but are afraid of failing.
Another common lie is when we tell ourselves that there was nothing that we could have done to change the outcome of a situation. This is often not true. While it is rarely useful to beat ourselves up over past mistakes, when we don’t acknowledge our own power and agency, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to learn from the experience and do better next time.
Only when we are completely honest with ourselves, can we identify what we can do to move ourselves closer to where we want to be.
Consistency
At the start of a new challenge, we might find that we honest with ourselves, stick to our word for a while, and don’t let emotions get in the way. But how long does this last?
Consistency to the commitment is the key to seeing genuine, long-lasting change, rather than flash in the pan success which is often followed by regression.
SEE ALSO: Leadership Golden Rules: How To Become a Better Manager
Developing these Qualities and Behaviors?
Each of us will already have these qualities and behaviours to a certain extent, and the best strategies for developing them often depends on the individual. But here are some of the most useful methods at your disposal.
Meditation
When it comes to Building emotional intelligence, there are few techniques more successful than meditation. Trying to clear your mind and put the stray thoughts that inevitable crop up to one side helps you recognize what those thoughts are. They do not come from your core self, but rather from your emotions. When you recognize them in this way, it is easier to choose whether to respond to them or not.
Set Small Goals
Often we fail to live up to our own expectations because we set ourselves sup to fail by asking ourselves to do too much. The more often we fail, and there are no serious consequences, the easier it is to not take the commitments that we make to ourselves seriously. Change that mindset by setting yourself small goals that are highly achievable and creating real consequences for when you fail. Over time, you will subconsciously learn the importance of meeting your personal commitments.
Understand Agency
Differentiating between what is within our control and what is not is one of the most challenging things in life. We often feel guilt for things that were out of our control, and blame others, when in reality we didn’t put in the work. It is worth taking the time to analyse situations and identify where you had agency, what you could have done differently, and what effect this would have had. This can help us develop the skill of recognizing agency.
Commit to Daily Practice
Self-leadership doesn’t work very well if you give yourself a pep-talk at the start of every month, but then just hope for the best. It needs to be a daily practice. Include a meeting with yourself as part of your morning and evening routines so that you can set your daily goals and debrief and assess how you did. This can help you develop the consistency that you need to turn goals into achievements.
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