When you want to practice self-leadership: 4 areas of focus
The concept of leadership is at the top of everyone's mind as we continue operating in unprecedented times with so much change, ambiguity, and volatility. I have been in many conversations about the skills, experiences, and attitudes people need to be successful leaders today. Certain themes certainly have emerged around skills, such as communication especially during times of change, making good decisions, leveraging data, empathetic listening, and so on.
Even if you're not a leader in title or level, a concept coined "self-leadership" in the early 1980s by Author and Professor Charles Manz is emerging again as a focus for professional development. And, truly, the four pillars of self-leadership constitute being a responsible and influential professional, which we all can strive for at any level. These four pillars include:
Self-discovery
Self-acceptance
Self-management
Self-growth
If you focus on yourself first, you can become a better leader within your department, organization, community, etc. Most leadership programs start with a focus on self, especially in the self-discovery or self-awareness spaces. You must know yourself first to know how to flex and relate to others, let alone influence and lead others.
I have had many roles in my career where I was an individual contributor without a team and without being in a high-level leadership role. However, I always felt I had an obligation to lead by example and fulfill an informal leadership role by communicating, listening, and understanding others on the team. Having this mindset helped me be successful and led to management roles further into my career.
So, how do we develop self-leadership muscles? Here are some thoughts on each of the four pillars.
Discover yourself.
There are many debates about what are the best assessments and personality quizzes to help us understand who we are, how we communicate, and how we are perceived. Regardless of what instrument you pick: DISC, StrengthsFinder, MBTI, Firo-B, Social Styles, and Colors, they all strive to help you learn more about yourself. I don't advocate for one instrument over another, but I do believe that at any level, we need to seek to understand more about ourselves and how those characteristics might strengthen us or lead to some blind spots. If you have read any of my blogs about career development, I also firmly believe in understanding our values and what matters to us at our core. Spending time to think about our values, what motivated us, our communication style, our natural tendencies, and our strengths is time well spent to inform the other 3 pillars.
Accept yourself.
Once you learn more about yourself, it is time to recognize and lean into who you are; not just your flaws but also your strengths. I love this definition from a Thrive Global post: "Self-acceptance is about taking responsibility for your feelings and actions, accepting what is and isn’t possible to change, and developing a plan to handle things differently in the future. It’s accepting that you are good enough already, but that everyone can always strive to be a little better." Implied in this definition is that none of us are perfect, and that's okay. Knowing yourself isn't enough; you must also accept yourself and know how you might respond to a situation and take ownership over your role in situations. If you are in touch with your strengths and blind spots, you can almost start to predict how to act or flex your style to better manage situations and outcomes.
Manage yourself.
Self-management is about holding yourself accountable for deadlines and results, ensuring you are working on the right priorities, and seeking to understand what those are if you are unsure. Managing yourself builds on discovery and acceptance to help you focus your time on your strengths and the areas where you are energized and add value and minimize those areas where you may not fit. Making time for work, learning and development (our next pillar), community, family/friends, and achieving the right balance of your time is essential to being a successful professional. Getting this right can set the tone for others as well. Managing yourself is also about when to say "no". Some of us are not very good about saying no, but knowing your strengths and your schedule should help you know when to take something on and when to pass.
Grow yourself.
Last, but certainly not least, is driving your own development and growth. As I mentioned above, managing yourself includes making time for development. I advise anyone in the workplace not to wait to be tapped on the shoulder for the next leadership development cohort or special project to grow your skills. Instead, keep your ears open and advocate for yourself to be considered for special opportunities. Learning and growth also mean how to learn from failure because it will happen. Failing at something can be a tough knock, but every successful person has failed at something(s) in their career. Knowing how to glean lessons and dust yourself off to move forward is a huge part of growing as a professional. A good leader also shares those lessons and helps others to avoid mistakes in the future.
You don't need a VP or above title to be a good leader. Self-leadership is just as important as leading others to be successful in your role. Being able to discover, accept, manage, and grow yourself is a good leader and can help set an example for others to follow.
Next week, we explore being a good leader with your team.