#3 Why does self leadership matter?
Self-Leadership Series 1 – #3 Why does self-leadership matter?
This post shares a personal story of a client who made a significant change in her personal and professional life when she decided to focus on self-leadership. It also looks at how focusing on self-leadership equips us with the foundational skills and tools to better navigate being a human!
Emica was a highly capable and well-regarded engineer working in key roles on multiple large and complex projects. However, she was desperately unhappy in her private life, finding herself with full responsibility for the running of her family’s household while also having to generate the family income. She had no support or empowerment to make any of her own life choices. She even had to seek permission from her husband to get her driver’s licence. Emica could see that the issues in her personal life were having an impact on the confidence and presence she had in her role. She knew that something needed to change and made a conscious choice to do something about it.
Emica sought out the support she needed to get started with her self-leadership journey – prioritising herself and her personal learning. This helped her gain the clarity she needed to begin the process of making tiny changes that would move her closer to her personal aspirations and goals. Over time, and with a regular and committed practice, Emica was able to make significant changes in her personal and professional life.
These changes would never have happened if she had let her life simply run its course, without enacting self-leadership through developing a clear intent and the willingness to open herself to different perspectives and new possibilities. Without prioritising this, Emica would likely have remained in the unhappy life she had previously found herself in. Somewhat ironically, getting her driver’s licence ended up being an important part of this process, providing both a boost to her confidence in her ability to back herself and the practical freedom that comes from not relying on others to get around.
Why does enacting self-leadership matter? If you were to ask Emica, she would say it is because it can change your life.
At its essence, the learning that is available to us when we commit to our self-work opens our ability to see different perspectives and new, often not previously conceived, possibilities. Without it, we are limited in our daily actions and interactions by our current beliefs, thoughts, behaviours and ways of being. We can also miss everyday chances to learn about ourselves and others and to grow from this knowledge and experience.
Simply put, if we don’t quarantine a part of our busy schedule for personal learning and wellbeing self-work, then change will usually only happen when it is forced upon us. Often this ends up being through adverse situations: the loss of a job, a new boss, the passing of a loved one, injury or illness, a divorce or separation. And while ‘forced change’ naturally fuels and is often vitally important to our growth, investing time and initiating focus on our self-work helps us to take the lead in our own development.
It’s possible, of course, that you already know this. Perhaps you are a leader who already has in place habits and routines that support your learning and wellbeing? If this is the case, no doubt you will be familiar with the benefits of creating space and slowing down to reconnect with yourself. Keep up the great work. Hopefully these blog posts will give you some ideas for continuing to refine this practice. If this is new for you, there is no time like now to get started.
In summary – why does self-leadership matter?
A focus on self-leadership equips us with skills and tools to better navigate being human. We learn how to navigate our thoughts, behaviours, beliefs and all the richness and complexities that being human inherently brings. I like to think of this as the ‘being a human 101 stuff’ that we should have learned at school but didn’t!
It helps us to access more of our vast inner resources from which we can begin to lead from the inside out. It is from that place that we are better able to nurture our dreams and inner most desires into reality.
The fourth post in this series will invite you to consider your personal motivation for attending to self-leadership.
This post is an excerpt from my draft book Activating Self Leadership
