The topic of leadership pops up everywhere these days: the importance of being a leader, the characteristics of a leader, how to lead, etc. Leadership with all possible adjectives attached to it: creative leadership (I love this one), transformative (my second favorite), empathic, motivational, servant, autocratic, and so on.
And that’s all right. It looks like we humans have an intrinsic need to label and structure things in a way that makes sense. Or is that just me?
I had an excellent opportunity to reflect on it while recently exploring some incredible landscapes in the Namib Desert. I think the rawness of the desert and the fact that Namibia is called the Land of the Brave gave me a slightly different perspective of what leadership means to me.
I observed that in the last years, leadership became a buzzword, like, let’s say, blockchain or metaverse – the latter seems to be fancier these days.
But when I was walking through a desert, the ideas became slightly different (and I can tell you, no access to the internet was a blessing), and the question that arrived at my awareness without invitation was:
So, tell me, when did you lead yourself for the last time?
I know, weird. Because what does it mean to lead yourself?
We can lead teams, and organizations, and projects but ourselves? And how can we even do it?
So I asked Auntie Google & here are some definitions:
Self-leadership means recognizing, exercising, and improving your own leadership. – Yes!
Self-leadership is when someone has developed a sense of who they are, what they can do, and where they are going. Coupled with this is the ability to influence communication, emotions, and behaviors.
Self-leadership is about you, your qualities, and your willingness to examine and change these.
Examining and upgrading my leadership has become a small habit for me as I believe that with new data/information, it’s my responsibility to make changes/ change my mind.
So my question to you today is: When did you lead yourself for the last time? Or, when did you choose to examine and change your qualities last time?
P. S. Discover our next Creative Leadership Workshop here.
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