Self Leadership Needs A Resurgence

Over the past couple of decades we have seen 'leadership' becoming a positional milestone loosely connected to a set of 'soft skills'. This has created many challenges for individuals and organisations alike including bullying, low engagement, conflict, chronic stress and talent turnover.

Leadership may be a noun but it is best expressed as a verb. It is my belief that leadership needs to be reinstated as a character trait that is utilised to empower people to bring out their best in this ever changing world. This mindset shift allows for an environment where everyone is seen as a leader, no matter the position they hold in the team.

To understand this further, let's have a quick look at 3 dimensions of leadership:

Social Leadership is the pinnacle where leaders have followers because of their ability to bring people together, facilitate collaboration and coach people to move toward common goals. They create low conflict environments and have high social and emotional intelligence.

Systems Leadership is an approach leadership that focuses on the management of a process rather than on the leadership of the people. Systems leaders usually have a high level of technical skill.

Self Leadership is all about leading yourself, a prerequisite to leading others, by developing a strong sense of who you are and why you do what you do. It focuses on self-awareness, self-management, self-care, self-confidence and self-motivation.

To be an effective Systems Leader and Social Leader you must first develop your Self Leadership capabilities.

Most leadership training programs today focus on teaching you how to lead your team, neglecting this crucial precursor of leading yourself. We need a resurgence of Self Leadership programs so we can build the very core of leadership, the leader themselves.