Leading Yourself
I’ve been in a leadership position for over 25 years. My bookshelf is packed with well-read books and I have an extensive personal collection of material that I’ve created and used for meetings for multiple different objectives.
I am a student of the psyche of leadership, and of the art of rallying others to realize their potential and achieve their goals. I love the ‘overcomer’ stories - where the protagonist is faced with impossible, pushed to the limits, and finds victory against all odds. I am a believer in the power of human potential, and I know I have pushed people hard in my career because of that belief.
Even with all of that studying and experience, I have been learning something incredibly new.
These past few months I have found myself in new territory. For the first time in over two and half decades I am without an official “team” and I have been fine-tuning the skill of self-leadership. When you go out on your own, there is no one depending on you for guidance. No one is looking to you for direction and inspiration. If you never “clock-in” - no one will be there to call you out or correct you.
Leading yourself is a measure of discipline. There are no moments of instant gratification. You will never see the same look of determination and triumph in the eyes of the man in the mirror that you do when you see someone on your team respond to being challenged. There is far less mystery in the eyes looking back at you in the mirror. You KNOW that persons doubts. You KNOW their fears, their temptations, their weaknesses, their insecurities. More importantly - that person in the mirror knows YOU and all of your weaknesses, failings, and doubts. There is no fooling this audience.
The lesson I’ve learned at this point:
DON’T TAKE YOUR TEAM FOR GRANTED.
THEY ARE LEADING YOU MORE THAN YOU REALIZE.
If you are in a leadership position, take notes on how you lead others and what your motivation is for doing it the way you do it. Test your messages and goals out on the man or woman in the mirror and see how well they hold up. Don’t ever stop being a student because you can never know the next lesson that life is going to put before you.