Author and leadership professor John Kotter once said, “Nothing undermines change more than behavior by important individuals that is inconsistent with the verbal communication.” Simply put, if you fail to lead yourself, it will have a negative ripple effect throughout the organization. So, what exactly is “self-leadership”? I define it like this:
Self-leadership is the ability to influence your life in a specific direction by engaging in disciplined awareness, alignment, action, and adjustment.
First, leadership is influence, thus, self-leadership is the ability to influence you. Second, to influence you, you must be disciplined in four areas:
- Disciplined Awareness – Leading yourself starts by knowing yourself. What are your gifts, abilities, and skills? What are your character gaps, leadership gaps, emotional deficiencies, and relational tension points? Disciplined awareness sets the starting blocks for leading yourself into the future by defining who you are now, who you’re not, and how you need to grow. There are plenty of assessments available today that provide a great starting point to increase your self-awareness.
- Disciplined Alignment – As you gain awareness of yourself, (which is not a one-time act), you must align your awareness with a focused growth plan. It’s not enough to read lots of books and attend lots of conferences. You need to align your growth activity to the areas of your life that will deliver the greatest outcomes. Choose the right books. Choose the right conferences. Choose the right coaches. Awareness defines your growth areas, but alignment charts the right course to actually see positive change.
- Disciplined Action – Once your growth course is determined and your growth plan is developed, you must implement it with discipline. Disciplined action that’s not connected to disciplined alignment only gets you to the wrong destination quicker. Your effort, energy, and activity must come to bear on the small handful of growth steps necessary to deliver the greatest impact. Action is not enough. That action must be focused and disciplined.
- Disciplined Adjustment – Finally, as you lead yourself down a path informed by a clearly defined growth plan, you must be willing to make adjustments along the way. However, adjustment must be handled with firmness and flexibility. Disciplined adjustment is firm when you resist the temptation to constantly adjust your plan just because it’s hard or difficult. Instead, set specific times to evaluate your plan, and then make adjustments that make the most sense. This evaluation process allows for flexibility to improve your plan without risking the loss of the discipline necessary to see measurable progress.
Self-leadership requires discipline from start to finish. Disciplined Awareness gives perspective. Disciplined Alignment creates a plan. Disciplined Action activates practice. And Disciplined Adjustment enables progress.
On the other hand, Undisciplined Awareness makes you think you’re someone you’re really not. Undisciplined Alignment makes your growth decisions random and haphazard. Undisciplined Action turns a growth plan into nothing more than a good idea. Your growth track needs action to gain traction. Finally, Undisciplined Adjustment makes your growth plan overfly firm (by not scheduling time to evaluate its effectiveness), or overly flexible (by making changes to your growth plan haphazardly or too frequently). In which of the four areas is your self-leadership strongest, and in which area are you the weakest? What steps do you need to take to become better at leading yourself?
