Looking in the mirror – The Inner Game of Leadership

Authentic leadership starts with you looking at yourself in the mirror and realising that to become a great leader of others, you need to start with leading yourself. Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher would focus a surprising amount of his energy on mastering self-leadership rather than spending his time trying to learn to rally and guide others. Dee Hock, the founder of the Visa credit card said: “If you look to lead, invest at least 40 percent of your time managing yourself."

You might be thinking that as a business owner, with so much to do, personal learning and development doesn’t really get things done right now. Not true! Choosing and setting goals for your own development will set a good example for your team and help you role model the importance of goals. Your team will follow suit setting goals for their development and so growing the company at the same time.

One well researched definition is:

“Self-leadership is the practice of intentionally influencing your thinking, feeling and actions towards your objective/s” (Bryant and Kazan 2012, Self-Leadership – How to Become a More Effective, and Efficient Leader from the Inside Out).

Do we get comfortable where we are? Do we accept everything that happens to us? Are we ‘controlled’ by others or external factors, or do we take control of our own direction? Are we in autopilot mode?

So, are you ready to invest your time in leading yourself?

Look in the mirror and identify your pain points. Though this can be difficult to do at first, the end result will help you reach an even more successful business outcome. Whatever we think and wherever we think we are, what can we do to break out of it?

There is an abundance of material out there on leading yourself or self-leadership and I recently came across a simple and straightforward approach.

Let’s start with:

1. Self-Awareness

You’ll want to focus on the areas that actually need improvement. As a leader you need this information but it’s not always easy for you to receive such feedback from your colleagues and direct reports. Even when they’re told there’s no comeback for their comments, many people still find it difficult to offer genuine criticism.

An employee engagement survey is a great starting point, something that we at Pro-Development have many years’ experience in. If you’re not ready to start that journey you could instead try what is often referred to as a “character traits check.” Think of someone you’ve worked with who in your opinion was a bad leader or boss. What were the things they did that caused you to think that way? Next, ask yourself: Do you share any of those behaviours? Then, give yourself a score from 1 to 5 (1 being you don’t really share the behaviour to 5 being that’s you to a tee).

Perhaps you had a manager who kept important info to themselves, making it difficult for you to do your job? Or maybe you had had a micromanager? Someone who played favourites? Maybe they were a vague communicator? Or they always told you they’d get back to you “later” but never did? Don’t be surprised if you relate personally to any of these behaviours. First step almost done; this awareness helps you to identify your potential areas of improvement.

Now plan for how you’ll work on them with SMARTIE goal setting but remember…not just to focus on your weaknesses but to also keep doing the things you do really well. Supersize your strengths!

2. Self-Reflection

Every day, take 5- 10 minutes to think about the challenges you’ve recently handled and the ones you’ll soon face. Some people like to do this over morning coffee whilst it is known that Marcus Aurelius was fond of reflecting in the evening.

Often when we reflect, we will focus on the negatives. How can you avoid this?

Here are some questions you can use as a jumping off point to start your self-reflection practice.

• How did my leadership go yesterday?
• How would I liked to have faced the challenges I came across?
• What about my challenges today?
• What could I do differently?

Write down your thoughts so you can refer back to them and learn from them. Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) shows that apart from helping you to lead self, doing this every day can also raise your compassion levels.

3. Self-Regulation

Often referred to as Emotional Intelligence, this leadership skill is highly important to most employees, according to research by professional HR bodies. This step is all about regulating your feelings.

No matter how much preparation and reflection you put in, there will be employees, colleagues, clients and associates who anger, frustrate or annoy you. There will be times as a leader when you think, “Stop doing this!” or something to that effect!

That’s where the practice of “reframing” comes in. Stop and ask yourself … on a scale from 1 to 10, how important is this issue right now?

You should engage with 9s and 10s right away, but you’ll find that many things which unbalance your calm will be low scoring. With anything that’s a 6 or lower, either excuse yourself physically (“I need to take a quick break; be right back”) or figuratively (“Let me take a minute to go over what you’ve said”). Then, give yourself a moment to think: “How would the leader I aspire to be handle this situation?” The answer will come to you.

Find that time to invest in yourself and remember that Great leadership starts with… I Lead Self

Pro-Development are specialists in Employee Engagement and Leadership Development, and we pride ourselves on how we work collaboratively with all our clients.  Leaders and Managers are vital to the engagement and profitability of any business. We know that a lack of leadership and management capability causes huge challenges and stress, often resulting in losing good people. We’ll help you develop authentic and inspiring leaders and managers.

When it comes to understanding and awareness of your leadership style, we offer a wide range of tools and techniques to suit the needs of you, your team and your business, helping you and your team to improve how you work together.

If you’re interested in finding out more about employee engagement or leadership development or need some help to get you started or find out more about the profiling tools we offer, then call us on 01904 628838 or email us info@1245881.eu11.myftpupload.com and we can discuss further how we can help.