Why You Can't Lead Without Self-leadership
In the field of companies and team management, it is very common to speak of leadership as an interpersonal phenomenon. It is not surprising that this is so, since the ability to lead groups of people working harmoniously and combining their individual skills It is as spectacular as it is practical in the work context, since it makes it possible to obtain unattainable results for each of those involved by separated.
However, we must not overlook that for there to be leadership, it is necessary that a work of self-leadership has been given before. This process, which is not as interpersonal as intrapersonal, has to do with knowing yourself and managing your own emotions properly.
- Related article: "Types of Leadership: The 5 most common types of leader"
What is self-leadership?
Let's start with a quick definition. Self-leadership is the ability that allows us to consciously influence our thoughts, emotions and behaviors, that is, in the behavior itself, in order to achieve our objectives and goals in a decisive.
It is very important to have a good capacity for self-leadership if we want to be good leaders before others; if we are not able to direct ourselves... How will we guide and lead a group of people?
In this way, maintaining a good capacity for self-leadership increases the possibility of achieving one's own set goals, either short or long term and being able to defer immediate gratification and keep motivated to achieve a greater goal in the future.
This ability has a positive impact not only on job performance, but also on personal well-being; It helps us to be able to make our own decisions without being tied to frames of thought that are imposed on us from outside and lead us to make the same mistakes over and over again. Thus, it guides us towards action strategies in which we can behave independently and maintaining a critical attitude towards what we do.
Likewise, self-leadership is broken down into five abilities that influence it: self-knowledge, ability to identify our own thoughts and emotions; maintaining a correct esteem, understood as the assessment we make of ourselves; autonomy, or ability to set one's own goals; self-management, which is the ability to regulate oneself emotionally, and self-motivation, which consists of staying strong in the face of challenges to achieve a goal.
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The self-leadership consolidation process
Self-leadership skills can be worked on, that is, we can learn it taking into account a series of points or conditions.
Leading does not mean being at the top of a hierarchy or commanding others, but knowing how to guide a group of people with the purpose of achieve the pre-established goals or objectives, and in order to perform this function correctly, it will first be necessary to know how to lead or guide oneself.
What can be done in this regard to improve self-leadership skills?
1. Be clear about your values and beliefs and respect them
It is very important that your objectives and goals are in line with your beliefs, values and way of thinking, since this way it will be easier for you to stay faithful and firm to your project until you can achieve them through consistent strategies. You will feel more comfortable knowing that you are doing what you really want or feel you should do.
Given the difficulty of maintaining a long-term goal, If this is not according to us, it will be more likely that we give up sooner.
Thus, the self-leadership process will be easier and more prosperous if we direct our objectives to achieve self-realization, to develop our capacities, abilities and talents to achieve what wanted. In this way, we will give meaning to our own lives and develop our own potential.
- Related article: "The 10 types of values: principles that govern our lives"
2. Know what the strengths of each one are
It is important that in order to optimally direct our behavior and performance towards a goal let's get to know and use our best skills in order to ensure a good result and to be able to achieve the goals more easily.
3. Work our own skills
The skills are not static, that is, we can work them so that they increase and prosper. In this way, training them in a systematic way will allow starting from our predispositions and talents and pave the way for us in the most delicate phase: the beginning.
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4. Be self-aware and honest with yourself
It is important to be honest with yourself about the shortcomings or skills that we need to work on. Once done, we can focus on learning and working with them. Deceiving yourself by ignoring your own vulnerabilities does not benefit usOn the contrary, it works against us, not allowing us to learn and evolve.
5. Have our goals clear
As we were already advancing, setting short-term goals is not incompatible with having future goals, since some complement each other. In this way, it is necessary to know where we want to go, what we want to achieve in order to work and even break down our end goal into smaller goals so that the way is easier and reach the final purpose.
It is also recommended to be clear about what we want to achieve and be realistic. Setting unrealistic goals only distracts us and wastes our time, generating a high opportunity cost.
What does coaching contribute?
As we have seen, you cannot lead well (a project, a team ...) without self-leadership.
In this sense coaching fosters the self-knowledge necessary to generate that self-leadership as necessary to lead our life as we want.
How can coaching help us?
- Improve our self-knowledge.
- Improve our social relationships from emotional management.
- Help us to be more agile and flexible mentally.
- Detect thoughts that sabotage our long-term projects.
If you are interested in working on these areas of self-leadership, access our training programs in coaching. On European School of Coaching We offer you several options to train in team coaching, executive coaching, and more.
