This is Why Self-Leadership Holds the Key to Your Success as a Leader
What is self- leadership?
To put it simply, self-leadership is the art of leading yourself. That is, it is about conquering yourself.
Generally, self-leaders aren’t interested in conquering or dominating others because they are too busy working on themselves. Yes, self-leaders are individuals who discover their strongest attributes and then work on it for their entire lives.
Usually, they are individuals who have discovered their leadership potential, which gives them an edge as it enables them, make the right choices.
But self-leaders aren’t perfect people. Like every other human, they are bound to make mistakes. For that reason, the art of becoming a self-leader also involves a process of acknowledging one’s weaknesses. This means that self-leaders often recognize their weaknesses and then find ways to overcome them.
If they are hot-tempered, for instance, they acknowledge it as a weakness and find ways to control or overcome it. They don’t allow their weaknesses get out of control.
Unfortunately, self-leadership is one area of leadership which most people aren’t aware of. Many people do not know they are supposed to lead themselves. Because they don’t think of themselves as leaders, they never take responsibility over anything that happens in their lives.
When they win, they think it’s because of their association with someone. And when they fail, they think it’s because they had no one to lead them. They are quick to blame others for the way their lives have turned out because they think it is other people’s responsibility to lead them. With that kind of mentality, they never become self-leaders. Because no one ever told them they can lead, they never see the need to take charge.
By focusing on others, they automatically abandon their own leadership responsibility. So, when things go wrong in their lives, they blame the person who’s leading them.
While they are blaming other leaders, their own lives require leadership. They know what’s wrong with their leaders. But they don’t know what’s wrong with them. They fail to realize that their own lives need to be led by them.
You see, when such people are given any leadership position, they usually fail because they didn’t prepare themselves for the opportunity. Since they never thought of themselves as leaders, they fail in that leadership capacity. In other words, because they weren’t self-leaders before they got the chance to lead others, failure becomes inevitable.
So, it is wise for us, to first of all, learn how to lead ourselves before leading others. It is the key to success. Think of it this way: when you lead yourself, it inevitably means you are leading a single person. Now if you can’t lead yourself — a single person, how then can you lead other people?
© 2023 Ben Dankaka. All rights reserved.
