Becoming a great leader requires many attributes and qualities, including being disciplined, organized, and true to yourself. If a person hasn’t mastered leading himself, it is highly unlikely for them to become a great leader. According to industry experts, the journey to leadership requires self-development and self-awareness.
Let’s take a look at some important stats and figures:
Stats and Figures
Let’s have a look at some leadership stats:
- As per Bloomleaders, 77% of corporations faced leadership gaps in 2019
- 63% of Millennials are of the opinion that their leadership skills are not being fully developed.
- As less as 14% of CEOs have the leadership talent, they need to grow their businesses. (Forbes)
- Burnout due to stress and anxiety may cause a healthcare cost of $190 billion a year in the US.
- More than 35% of new leaders fail within the first 18 months.
What Is Self-Leadership?
Self-leadership is the deliberate action to influence ones thinking and action to achieve an objective. It is also known as the practice of leading one’s self to become the master of your own life. Self-leadership teaches one how to manage himself in complex and uncertain situations. To lead a team or group of people, one must be good at self-leadership and recognizing one’s self.
To understand it better, self-leadership involves:
- Intention – an intention will guide you and your behaviors, making it more purposeful while giving a sense of fulfillment
- Self-awareness – knowing one’s self in the best way possible and how to behave in uncertain circumstances
- Self-confidence – having a strong belief in your abilities and strengths
- Self-efficacy – being open to uncertainty and adjusting according to the circumstances with confidence to overcome
True Wisdom Lies In Knowing Yourself
The first step in becoming a true leader is recognizing yourself, including the good and the bad. It is not easy for people to recognize their negative traits and weaknesses; however, you must self-reflect to know more about yourself. Once you have recognized the weaknesses, it is easier to work on them.
Not just leadership, knowing yourself is an essential skill for entrepreneurs, managers, and supervisors as well. The values, norms, beliefs, and habits you possess highly influence your decision-making abilities, habits, and outcomes. These terms greatly impact your leadership skills, and once you have a detailed insight into yourself, your decision-making abilities are more deliberate.
Talking to yourself is important to hear yourself out and acknowledge it. You must listen to the voice that’s constantly commenting from within and the self-critique, so you’re not in conflict with yourself at any point.
There are other ways to reach self-awareness, such as asking others; an anonymous 360-degree appraisal is one way to know about yourself from other people’s perspectives, giving you a chance to reflect upon yourself and work on your negative areas.
It is essential that after realizing your strengths and weaknesses, one must work upon them and acknowledge them. You should own yourself as an individual with flaws as well as strengths and try not to let your fears and weaknesses overpower you at any point. To become a great leader, you must be patient with your own self and work on becoming better at each step.
For a great leader, skills such as fluent communication skills are essential to managing teams. Having the ability to communicate details can help you achieve success and manage teams easily. To communicate with others, you first need to be good at communicating things within yourself as well.
Mastering Yourself
Mastering yourself enables you to have control over yourself and tackle the difficult situation with grace and conviction. To become a great leader, one must work on his self-first to achieve better management skills.
- Developing Good Habits
Habits are the core values that keep you disciplined and aligned with your goals. Self-evaluating your habits and improving the bad ones can help you become better. Good habits, including time management, punctuality, loyalty, dedication, and staying organized, are essential for leading a good life and becoming better at leadership in general.
For tasks as simple as cleaning, it takes 21 days for a person to develop a new habit, and if you think you need to focus on a habit, then you must follow it deliberately for 21 consecutive days and watch it become a part of you. Focusing on one habit at a time is better and won’t let you feel overwhelmed.
- Keeping SMART Goals
Having goals give you a vision and targets that you can allocate based on a timeline.
Tracking your performance and achievement is important to give you a sense of fulfillment and motivates you to work even harder. Making smart goals can help you monitor your progress, which is essential when you are trying to develop a new habit or simply trying to achieve the goals you have for yourself.
- Prepare For Self-Sabotage
Too often, self-sabotaging plays a role in resisting growth and performance. You must also be prepared for what is to come and how to face the challenges. Having a solid plan and following the plan can help you stay on track with your goals. Managing yourself in an uncertain situation, and learning how to cope with it can help you reach your goals.
- Self-Care Is Essential
While being on this journey of self-mastery, you must not be hard on yourself. Give several breaks and reward yourself on your accomplishments to feel motivated to do better.
Self-care is essential to move forward and improve your mental health as well as motive you in following your plans.
- Accept Failure
Last but not the least, accept that failure is not bad, and there is no better teacher than failure. The lessons you will learn after failing will help you in doing better. Failure is a part of life, and you must be responsible for the failure, learning from your mistake. Forgive yourself for the mistakes, learn, and move on. Self-mastery is a journey where you will fail most of the time to become perfect at what you do.
Author Bio:
Nouman provides ghostwriting and copywriting services. His educational background in the technical field and business studies helps him in tackling topics ranging from career and business productivity to web development and digital marketing. He occasionally writes articles for carpet cleaning.