What is Self-Leadership and Why is it Important?

There are many forms and types of leadership to model from including servanthood leadership, transformational leadership, and laissez-faire leadership, meaning “hands-off” in French. With so many styles to choose from, where does someone start who truly wants to step up in their organization and make a real difference as a great leader? Self-leadership.

What is Self-Leadership

One very powerful way to begin one’s journey into the world of leadership is by learning about and practicing self-leadership. Think about it this way – if one cannot lead him- or herself, who also can they lead? It makes a lot of sense.

Self-leadership involves understanding one’s abilities and developing them continually through learning and experience. It involves the ability to gain control over one’s self, their emotions, motivations, effectiveness and coping. Emotional intelligence is a very important skill set required to lead one’s self. Self-control and self-management are also important aspects of self-leadership.

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Practicing Self-Leadership

Applying various strategies on a daily basis to a solid foundation of self-leadership can take one’s leadership skills to new and greater heights. Self-goal-setting is critical because it provides a roadmap laying out where an individual currently is concerning their self-leadership journey and where they need to go to improve their skills.

Self-Observation

Self-observation is another key component and involves internally monitoring one’s feelings, emotions and thoughts. It involves “thinking about how one thinks”. Finding the positive and minimizing or eliminating negative thoughts can be very helpful for those engaged in self-leadership.

Self-Talk

Engaging in self-talk is something that every leader can practice. It’s good to talk out different plans, ideas or strategies before expressing them to others. Self-talk can lead to better decision-making and problem-solving, because the individual can “hear” how the ideas sound to themselves. If they sound good, maybe they’re worth pursuing.

All People Are Self-Leaders

While it’s true that almost every human being leads themselves, the issue is are they doing it well or is their form of self-leadership dysfunctional or even self-destructive? Another way to put this is all people are self-leaders but not all self-leaders are effective at self-leading. This is kind of a good news, bad news issue. The good news is that everyone can improve their skills in becoming a better self-leader.

Final Thoughts on Self-Leadership

What does it take to be an effective leader? Many things, for sure. But one of the most basic ways to develop enhanced leadership skills is to lead one’s self in positive and intentional ways. To self-lead means to self-manage, maintain self-confidence, and to have a strong sense of self-control. Think about how impactful this can be in the workplace. Great self-leaders instilling self-leadership in others. When an individual feels that they own the process, they tend to perform better.