Table of contents:
- What is self-leadership
- Definition of self-leadership
- Characteristics of self-leadership
- The 5 aces of self-leadership
- How to develop self-leadership: 14 steps
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Leadership is a skill that we have heard often, by which a person is able to influence people and get them to work as a team to achieve a goal. However, as much or more important is self-leadership, which we forget more easily. This competence is necessary to achieve control over our lives and decisions, as well as for personal growth and development.
If you want to know more about this quality and how you can train it, keep reading this article on Psychology-Online: Self - leadership: what it is, characteristics and how to develop it. With this information you will learn what self-leadership is and how it is applied.
You may also be interested in: Self-regulation: what it is, examples and exercises Index- What is self-leadership
- Characteristics of self-leadership
- How to develop self-leadership: 14 steps
What is self-leadership
The concept of leadership has been used a lot in the workplace to talk about the management of work teams. Leadership is the ability to direct and motivate other people. Therefore, self-leadership will refer to this capacity for oneself. Let's see in depth what self-leadership is.
Definition of self-leadership
What is self-leadership? The concept of self-leadership is defined as the ability to deliberately and consciously influence one's thoughts, emotions and behaviors in order to achieve the personal goals that we have set ourselves.
The capacity for self-leadership is formed by the set of psychological skills that increase the chances of achieving goals both in the medium and long term, despite the limitation of resources and the uncertainty of the future. Self-leadership involves a series of competencies such as focusing attention on goals, persistence, maintenance of motivation and discipline for them, even if they do not result in immediate gratification, evaluation and monitoring of actions based on the established objectives., being able to adjust them if they are not optimal, as well as planning and prioritizing tasks.
This ability is related to emotional intelligence, since it presents a component of emotional management and regulation, as well as intrapersonal intelligence, since it implies an awareness and knowledge of our own person and the ability to use this information for personal benefit.
The importance of self-leadership resides in the fact that the person is in control of their own life, its consequence is personal empowerment. People with developed self-leadership make their own decisions independently and are able to maintain a focus on their objectives, which increases the chances of achieving their achievement, and therefore achieving what they have proposed and is important to them. All this results in greater emotional well-being, personal growth, as well as greater security and confidence in one's own person.
Characteristics of self-leadership
There are a series of psychological processes and self-leadership behaviors that people with a self-leadership profile present. These qualities are known as the 5 aces of self-leadership.
The 5 aces of self-leadership
The 5 characteristics of self-leadership are:
- Self-knowledge: it is the self-awareness or ability to recognize and identify our own thoughts and emotions, how they affect us and the causes that originate them. This ability includes knowledge about the resources we have, as well as our own limitations, and awareness of our strengths and weaknesses.
- Self-esteem: refers to the set of perceptions, evaluations and evaluations that a person makes of himself, in terms of his value, way of being and qualities. This judgment implies the own acceptance, respect and care, which allows an empowerment of our person.
- Autonomy: it is the faculty by which people are able to establish their own priorities and objectives and independently, to form personal criteria, make decisions and assume responsibility for our own actions.
- Self-management: it is the ability to regulate one's own emotions (emotional self-leadership), behaviors and own resources to direct them towards the set goal. It also means being able to analyze and monitor actions without outside help and redirect or adjust them when necessary.
- Self-motivation: it is the ability to influence one's mood and perseverance to keep them facing a set goal. It is made up of initiative, will, commitment to goals, optimism, and achievement orientation.
How to develop self-leadership: 14 steps
Self-leadership has great implications for one's own competence and well-being, as well as being highly valued in various fields, especially at work. Training in these skills is possible and its implementation allows the improvement of these. Therefore, below we present a series of strategies to enhance your self-leadership:
- Get to know yourself: spend some time analyzing your qualities, your strengths and weaknesses. To facilitate this self-assessment, you can think about situations in which you think you acted competently or appropriately and in which your actions could be improved, as well as ask close people about your abilities or ask questions of yourself or yourself. Through this exercise you can get an idea about your resources and limitations.
- Self-learning: once you have identified your limitations or points to work on, it is advisable to work on them as much as possible through information and knowledge about these qualities, as well as the search for possible activities or tasks that can increase them. For example, if you think you need to improve your social skills, you can sign up for group activities such as team sports, theater, an association, etc. or it is also possible to go to a professional person to do social skills training.
- The wheel of life: it is a personal development technique through which a circle is drawn and ten areas are written that you would like to change or improve in your life. Once selected, it is necessary to prioritize assigning a number to each of these points according to the importance given to each one. Through this tool, an analysis of the present and a focus on the future are carried out.
- Establish objectives: once the wishes or needs have been identified, it is necessary to express them in an operational way, so that they stimulate and guide action. To do this, it is convenient to write specific and concrete objectives, which can be measured or evaluated in some way and are realistic, achievable through effort and work. It is also advisable to break down or subdivide the final objective into short, medium and long-term objectives, as it allows a clearer vision when making an action plan.
- Design a strategy: based on the information you have about your own resources and qualities and the objectives set, establish a bridge between the two, that is, find the methodology or actions that will bring you closer to your goals, but in a realistic way and based on your strengths and weaknesses. You can brainstorm and choose among all the options that you consider the one that is most plausible to you.
- Plan: in the development of self-leadership it is very useful to create plans using visual tools such as lists, diagrams and schedules. Planning should be done based on time criteria and the availability of resources, both personal and material. Program taking into account those activities that will take you the most time and those that will take less time according to your strengths and weaknesses. Deadlines must be set for carrying out the established actions.
- Focus: to maintain attention it is more effective to focus on a single activity and then on another, since the brain manages to avoid and filter more distractions.
- Manage the changes: in your planning and programming you can include a plan b thinking about possible setbacks that may arise, however, if it is still not possible to control them, try to change your point of view and perceive this change or modification as an opportunity.
- Develop habits: regarding the development and maintenance of self-discipline and perseverance, it is essential to create and commit to certain habits and routines that structure your day-to-day life.
- Get motivated : to stay motivated, disciplined and persistent, you need to disconnect, socialize, do rewarding activities, and reward yourself from time to time after great efforts. In this way, you help reinforce your own behaviors and achieve balance. Posing new and different challenges also helps you motivate yourself.
- Be flexible: Self- leadership involves knowing when to rest and when to be flexible with yourself to perform better. It is necessary to be a person who cultivates self-indulgence, who does not punish himself and understands himself in the failures, as well as takes into account his own emotions. The latter implies, for example, that if one day we have received bad news and attending to our emotions we detect that we are sad, we should temporarily slow down and take care of ourselves or carry out those activities of our planning that do not require so much effort, if we we feel capable.
- Make adjustments: making adjustments starts both from your own monitoring and evaluation and from your ability to be flexible. It is essential from time to time to analyze progress and your own state of mind and make modifications in the initial planning in a way that benefits our well-being and, therefore, our performance and achievement of objectives.
- Make a final assessment: reflect and extract the learning once you have reached the end of the goal. In this assessment, try to focus on the process rather than the result, identify what has worked and what has not, and incorporate this new information in the face of new challenges.
- Go to a professional person: you can consider the option of going to a professional person for training in self-leadership in general or in any of its components that you identify as necessary.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Self- leadership: what it is, characteristics and how to develop it, we recommend that you enter our category of Personal growth and self-help.
Bibliography- Garza Carranza, MTDL, Guzmán Soria, E., & Gallardo Aguilar, MDC (2018). Self-leadership and emotional intelligence. Science and society .
- Leider, RJ (2008). 19. The fundamental task of leadership: self-leadership. In The leader of the future (pp. 217-227).
- Palmero, F., & Martínez-Sánchez, F. (2008). Motivation and emotion . Madrid: Mc-Grawhill Interamericana of Spain.