SELF LEADERSHIP

Last week, I have attended a workshop on developing organizational leadership where the speaker emphasized on the criteria to develop organizational leadership. However, to develop leadership in a company, it is also important to instill self leadership among the team members in the organization.

I was in the queue while waiting to board the plane from the Federal Capital back to Kuching, my friend, Peter Kong asked me, “ John, do you think it is important for an individual to master self leadership and self management before we can lead others ? Apparently, he was reading a book on self management and self leadership.

Peter made a point there, it is important for an individual to influence themselves to achieve the self direction and self motivation needed to achieve his/her goal in life.

Developing Self Leadership

· Set goals for your life; not just for your job. Use the SMART model to set the goals…all goals need to be specific, measurable, achievable, result-oriented and need a time frame. What we think of as “meaning of life” goals affect your lifestyle outside of work too, and you get whole-life context, not just work-life, each feeding off the other.



· Practice discretion constantly, and lead with the example of how your own good behavior does get great results. Uphold integrity, respect individual, service to the team members and do your best in whatever thing you are doing . Otherwise, why should anyone follow you when you lead ?



· Take initiative. Volunteer to be first. Be daring, bold, brave and fearless, willing to fall down, fail, and get up again for another round. Starting with vulnerability has this amazing way of making us stronger when all is done.



· Be humble and give credit when due and celebrate success with your own success with your family members and business success with your team members. Going before others is only part of leading; you have to go with them too. Therefore, they’ve got to want you around!



· Learn to love ideas and experiments. Turn them into pilot programs that preface impulsive decisions. Everything was impossible until the first person did it.



· Live in wonder. Wonder why, and prize “Why not?” as your favorite question. Be insatiably curious, and question everything. When you see a machine is not running, we need to ask.. why not it is running rather than why it is not running. Never accept a NO for an answer but a solution always.



· There are some things you don’t take liberty with no matter how innovative you are when you lead. For instance, to have integrity means to tell the truth. To be ethical is to do the right thing. These are not fuzzy concepts.



· Believe that beauty exists in everything and in everyone, and then go about finding it. You’ll be amazed how little you have to invent and much is waiting to be displayed.



· Actively reject pessimism and be an optimist. Say you have zero tolerance for negativity and self-fulfilling prophecies of doubt, and mean it.



· Champion change. As the saying goes, those who do what they’ve always done, will get what they’ve always gotten. The only things they do get more of are apathy, complacency, and boredom.



· Be a lifelong learner, and be a fanatic about it. Surround yourself with mentors and people smarter than you. Seek to be continually inspired by something, learning what your triggers are.



· Care for and about people. Compassion and empathy become you, and keep you ever-connected to your humanity. People will choose you to lead them.



Self Management

In fact self leadership begins with self management. Self management is the degree an individual takes responsibility for his or her job above and beyond the mere execution of traditional role responsibilities, such as working toward preset goals.

Development of self leadership is important because a singular human act invites a response by a party affected by the change, which then calls for a response by the first individual. Effective self leadership can result in an important shift from individual level independence concerning work attitudes to team level homogeneity in members levels of trust, potency and commitment

Trust is the belief that an individual or group can make efforts to uphold commitments, will be honest, ,and will not take advantage given the opportunity. Trust has the strongest potential influence on interpersonal and group behavior. Understanding the determinants of trust in teams can be an important key to fostering team effectiveness. With self discipline, self governance and self leadership, an individual will be able to develop trust among his/her team members.

Effectiveness based trust, an individual develop strong links of personal values and emotional ties toward each other. This improves the understanding of each other as individual members and creates a climate of emotional openness where individuals are less concerned about their own vulnerabilities or fears that other members may exploit them for individual outcomes. This resulting social intimacy also helps them develop shared values, perceptions and mental models.

In summary, self-leadership provides considerable promise for taking the pursuit of employee effectiveness to the next level. Indeed, effectively self-led employees, both behaviorally and cognitively, may offer the best blueprint for achieving employee and organizational effectiveness in the 21st century.