Being a new month, today is a perfect time to ramp up your leadership skills. You may not realize, but you are a leader in your everyday life. When you become a leader in your life, you empower yourself to lead the life of your dream.
That is the most beautiful gift you can give yourself, as you will always benefit from the skills, experiences, and knowledge you have acquired on that journey to become a great leader. Some benefits include:
• Lead a productive life full of abundance
• Increase your resilience and ability to perform without feeling
the pressure of stress
• Improve your relationships and how others perceive you
• Become a better communicator and clearly state your goals
• Acquire self-awareness, self-confidence, and courage
• Grow your capacity to be creative and innovative
• Be perceived as trustworthy and competent by others
• Be more dependable, reliable, and competent.
Leaders know their goals and do small things every day to reach
them. One attribute of a leader is that they are self-starters; they need to self-motivate to take action on required goals while having influence and the ability to motivate others.
Here are some quick tips to be a self-starter (or affirm that you are):
- Self-assess – you must know how you motivate and act; look back on past accomplishments, whether successful or not. Was the idea inspired or given? What was the passion or impetus to begin? If you didn’t complete something, what was the reason? With this information, you can capitalize on them.
- Are you clear on your goals – you must have total clarity on any goal you desire as this makes it easier to set action steps so you reach them. Can you ‘see’ yourself as you work on the goal and the end-result? Can you feel the emotions – frustrations, victory of success? Do you know exactly what is the first step, second, and so on?
- Know how you start – when given a goal, look back on how you begin – are you methodical and strategic; are you creative and out-of-the-box; or do you rely on your intuition? Knowing how you begin a task will get and keep you going
- Confidence and self-reliance – leaders have confidence in their skills, knowledge, and abilities (SKAs) so check on yours – how do you take charge with goals or when problems arise? How do you walk in a room, i.e. head held high, your walk, your facial expressions, etc.? Do you rely on yourself to solve challenges or deal with difficult people, or do you have to consult with someone? Knowing these will enhance your confidence level or lead you to work on those you where may not be as strong.
Look at this scenario to determine how you take action and problem-solving abilities:
Justin is a supervisor in a business office where he believes he is adding value and having good results from his team. However, Justin has been feeling an ‘itch’ to move up into a manager role to take on more responsibilities and make more money. Despite this, he dabbles with looking for other jobs but not sending out any applications for his next role. One day, Justin gets called in to Human Resources (HR) and is told there is a wave of layoffs, and he is included in this. He is told it’s not due to performance but a fiscal decision as the company is streamlining operations. Justin is panicking at the loos of job and income, while feeling remorse that he did not aggressively apply for other jobs, which he now finds himself doing.
What did you take from this scenario? What was the reason(s) Justin did not take earlier action to find another job? What is his motivation now? How could Justin have used this motivation to take action in his earlier job search? Do you see the difference in his self-leadership?
The bottom line is that self-leadership is a personal responsibility and a choice, which you do have. It involves mastering your strengths and
weaknesses to make them pillars of your daily actions and to
inspire others; it is accepting yourself and all life challenges
around you; it is being confident that you can effect change and get others to do the same thing.
By doing these and making them part of your daily practice, you will realize that in so many ways you are already a leader in your life and your organization.
“Let your first hour set the theme of success and positive action that is certain to echo through your entire day. Today will never happen again.” — Og Mandino
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