SELF-LEADERSHIP: what it is, characteristics and how to develop it

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 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 Psychology-Online article: 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.

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 take a closer look at what self-leadership is.

Definition of self-leadership

What is self-leadership? The self leadership concept is defined as the

Self-leadership ability is formed by the set of psychological skills that increase the chances of achievement of objectives both in the medium and long term, despite limited 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, the evaluation and monitoring of the actions in based on the established objectives, being able to adjust them if they are not optimal, as well as planning and prioritizing chores.

This ability is related to emotional intelligence, since it presents a component of emotional management and regulation, as with intrapersonal intelligence, since it implies an awareness and knowledge of our own person and the ability to use this information for our own benefit.

The importance of self-leadership resides in the fact that the person is in control of their own life, the consequence of which 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 for they. All this has an impact on a greater emotional well-being, personal growth, as well as greater security and confidence in one's own person.

There are a number of psychological processes and self-leadership behaviors presented by people with a self-leadership profile. 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 assessments that a person makes of himself, in terms of value, way of being and qualities of it. 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 in a independent, to form a personal criterion, make decisions and assume responsibility for our own Actions.
• Self-management: is the ability to regulate one's 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 in front of a set goal. It is made up of initiative, will, commitment to goals, optimism, and achievement orientation.

Self-leadership has great implications for one's own competence and well-being, as well as being highly valued in various fields, especially in the workplace. 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:

1. 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 those in which your actions could be improved, as well as asking close people about your abilities or asking yourself questions or herself. Through this exercise you can get an idea about your resources and limitations.
2. 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 should 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 carry out training in social skills.
3. The wheel of life: It is a personal development technique in which you draw a circle and write down ten areas 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. Using this tool, an analysis of the present and a focus on the future are carried out.
4. Set goals: once the wishes or needs have been identified, it is necessary to translate them into an operational form, so that they stimulate and guide action. For 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, since it allows a clearer vision when making an action plan.
5. Design a strategy: Based on the information you have about your own resources and qualities and the objectives set, establish a bridge between both, 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 defects. You can brainstorm and choose among all the options that you consider the one that is most plausible to you.
6. Plan: In the development of self-leadership, the creation of plans using visual tools such as lists, diagrams and schedules is very useful. Planning must 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.
7. Focus on: 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.
8. Manage 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 a chance.
9. Develop habits: as for the development and maintenance of self-discipline and perseverance is essential to create and commit to certain habits and routines that structure your day to day.
10. Get motivated: Maintaining motivation, discipline, and perseverance requires you to disconnect, socialize, engage in 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.
11. Be flexible: Self-leadership involves knowing when to rest and when to be flexible with yourself for better performance. It is necessary to be a person who cultivates self-indulgence, Do not punish yourself and understand in the failures, as well as take into account your 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 lower the pace of demand temporarily and take care of ourselves or carry out those activities of our planning that do not demand so much effort, if we feel able.
12. Make adjustments: making adjustments is based on both self-monitoring and evaluation and flexibility. It is essential from time to time to analyze your progress and your own state of mind and make changes in the initial planning in a way that benefits our well-being and therefore our performance and achievement of objectives.
13. Make a final assessment: reflect and extract 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 worked so much and incorporate this new information in the face of new challenges.
14. Go to a professional person: You can consider the option of going to a professional person to carry out a 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.