4 Keys to Self Leadership
The ability to lead others begins with a leader's ability to lead oneself. This may seem straightforward, but especially in today's fast-paced world of work, leaders can lose their perspective -- their sense of purpose and direction -- and their ability to lead others effectively. So, how do you lead yourself effectively? Here are a few key considerations.
Affirm What's Important: develop clarity about personal values, vision, and purpose.
When I work with leaders in developing clarity about personal values, I ask them to refer to a list of value words or statements and highlight those words or statements that resonate. Here's an abridged list of words: abundance, accomplishment, accuracy, achievement, adventure, affection, appreciation, balance, belonging, bravery, brilliance, calm, candor, caring, certainty, challenge, change, community, compassion, confidence, courage, curiosity, dependability, devotion, dignity, discovery, drive, duty, education, effectiveness, empathy, encouragement, faith, family, focus, forgiveness, friendship, goodness, gratitude, growth, guidance, health, heroism, honor, influence...
I then ask leaders to narrow their list of values to ten and then perhaps five. Once the top five list is affirmed, I ask them to then consider which values they are living out and which values they are neglecting. Further, I ask them to consider what actions they may take to live out their values and how those values drive their future vision and personal purpose.
Allow What's Important to Provide Direction: demonstrate authenticity through actions that align with values and vision; prioritize based on what's important.
I appreciate Mike Robbins' perspective on authenticity in his book Be Yourself: Everyone Else is Already Taken. Robbins highlights principles for being authentic. Here are several principles from the book:
Know Yourself: Practice self awareness by paying greater attention to what you say and do, how you interact with others, what thoughts and feelings you have, and how you show up in life. Also, learn more about yourself. Receiving and being open to feedback from others is important. How others perceive you and your actions may be helpful in you gaining some clarity about your perceptions of yourself.
Also, taking advantage of personal assessment tools such as the Everything DiSC® and the Gallup® Clifton StrengthsFinder® may be helpful. These tools, in particular, will help you to better understand your behavioral tendencies and how you interact with others and will help you to better understand your talents and how you may leverage your talents to be a more effective leader of self and others.
Transform Your Fears: This begins by knowing your fears, appreciating fears and how they may be indicators of things that need to be addressed, not allowing your fears to stop you, and moving through fear in a positive way.
Express Yourself: This involves speaking the truth, being real, honest, and vulnerable, being able to resolve conflict, and being emotionally intelligent.
Your ability to focus on priorities is essential, too, in moving toward what's important.
Determine Your Attitude: maintain an appropriate, empowered attitude.
Other people and life's circumstances do not define our attitudes. We determine our attitudes. Perhaps that sounds trite, but it's the truth. The challenge and opportunity we face is managing our attitudes -- sometimes moment by moment -- and realizing our attitudes, whether positive or negative, are a contagion.
John Maxwell, in his book The Winning Attitude: Your Key to Personal Success, states that our attitude growth never stops. Our attitudes are formed by experiences and how we choose to react to them. And he goes on to say that the more our attitude grows on the same foundation, the more solid it becomes. Therein lies another choice; what do you choose to dwell on that may impact your attitude?
I often ask leaders to consider the following questions to assess their attitudes:
What does your attitude say about you?
Is your attitude working for you or against you?
Would an attitude adjustment make things better?
If someone stole your attitude, would they benefit from it?
Be Resilient: be persistent in leading yourself through change and in overcoming adversity.
For some of us, being resilient or adaptable can be extremely difficult. The converse of resiliency is we are brittle and unyielding. The reality is if we don't learn to be resilient, it will take a mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical toll on us.
When I work with leaders on resiliency, I start by asking them their perceptions of change. Oftentimes, our perceptions of change have a significant impact on our personal resiliency. Of course, our view of change may depend on the significance of the change, the degree to which we feel it may impact us, etc. But, generally, how do we view change: as a positive or negative experience? How does that perception impact our reaction and subsequent actions regarding the change?
Next, I ask leaders to consider some questions that may allow them to assess their resiliency and develop actionable plans to develop their resiliency and garner support from others to assist. Some assessing questions may include:
Do you cope well with change? If so, what are your coping mechanisms?
Do you consider change an opportunity to improve a situation?
Do you recognize the forces that drive change?
Do you adapt to change easily?
Do you avoid change?
Do you anticipate when change may be necessary?
The ability to lead others begins with a leader's ability to lead oneself. What are you doing that allows you to affirm what's important and gives you a sense of direction, enables you to maintain an appropriate and empowered attitude, and assists you in developing resiliency so that you may effectively lead self and others?