INFOGRAPHIC: 5 Tips to Achieve Self Leadership

The Importance of Self Leadership

The saying “the right-hand doesn’t know what the left-hand is doing” doesn’t begin to describe the complexity in many organizations.  

Rather than a pyramid, many of today’s businesses more often resemble the Hecatonchires – gigantic creatures in Greek mythology with fifty heads and one hundred arms. 

As organizational designs become more complex, traditional leadership models in their pure form become problematic. In light of this, much has been written about the need for more collaborative, facilitative, and shared leadership models.  While we must continue to explore these models of leadership, we must also pay attention to self-leadership.  

Self-leadership is the intentional process of influencing our own feelings, thoughts and behaviors to fulfill our potential, thereby increasing the positive impact we can have on the world around us.  Self-leadership is not self-absorption; it involves looking inwardly to contribute outwardly.  

How does self-leadership show itself?

• Self-analysis to identify strengths and development areas  
• Self-balance to avoid being overwhelmed by perceived chaos and complexity 
• Self-control of feelings thoughts and behaviors in challenging circumstances
• Self-direction and focus in the face of uncertainty and ambiguity
• Self-discipline when there is no easy answer to “Who’s in charge? 
• Self-education when formal learning opportunities are unavailable
• Self-efficacy when feedback on personal capabilities is absent or rare 
• Self-goal setting to stretch current capabilities
• Self-motivation when other motivators are ineffective   
• Self-observation of functional and dysfunctional feelings, thoughts and behaviors
• Self-talk to identify ongoing lessons learned from experience

How can we develop self-leadership for our increasingly demanding world?

We must all prepare ourselves for battling the organizational Hecatonchires on an ongoing basis.  Hecatonchires never sleep – which is why we must urgently accelerate self-leadership development. 

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