Leadership skills are a critical factor for business success but leadership is so much more than leading others. A more important trait of a good leader is self-leadership. If you have good self-leadership, leading others will come naturally. Self-leadership includes self-control, emotional competency, and continuous learning. There are many more components but these are three good ones to start with:
Self-control. I was watching the movie about Steve Jobs, 
founder of Apple computer, this weekend and there was a scene where he was ripping an employee apart in front of the rest of the team and ended up firing the guy on the spot. Now if we’re honest, many of us would admit that we have felt or wished that we could do that on occasion but we don’t because we have to exercise self-control or risk being fired ourselves. Even Jobs wasn’t immune from the effects of losing control though. It was one of the things that lead to him eventually being ousted from his own company. Self-control is more than just not losing our cool though. It’s about not getting to that point in the first place. First take an honest look at how you’re reacting to external circumstances and see if you have work to do.
Emotional competency. Maybe you’ll find out that you’re biting your tongue more than you want. Or you’re having fits of road rage because of the stress you’re under that you can’t vent in the office. The way we react to external circumstances – people, places, and things – is a good indication of our emotional competency. I have personally spent a lot of time developing in this area. I had to. When a previous boss gave me a copy of the book ‘Dealing With Emotional Intelligence’ I took that as a hint. As a naturally direct, to the point, assertive person I had some work to do. In the world of DiSC® I am a straight up D. A student in a recent class I was teaching on the topic didn’t believe me. She came up to me after class and said skeptically, ‘you’re not really a D, are you?’ I had to confess that I was (and proud to be I might add) but through years of development, I have been able to temper my natural tendencies and become more emotionally competent when dealing with others.
Continuous learning. We all have areas of development. If you think you don’t you are short-changing yourself. As I mentioned above, one of my areas is emotional intelligence. I have many other areas to grow as well and I welcome the opportunities. I love to learn and I can always find a place to improve. I have been spending a lot of time studying the art of selling lately and I’m devouring everything I can get my hands on. I’ve been listening to audio books and I have a stack of sales books to pour over. One of the books I’m reading right now is Agile Selling by Jill Konrath. Jill has two other sales books and I have both of those too and I get to interview Jill on The Focus Radio show tomorrow where I’m sure I’ll get even more great info. You may not have the opportunity to interview your favorite author but do pick up books and learn, learn, learn. It’s a great leadership practice.
Make these three ideas a part of your habits and you will master self-leadership in no time. Then you’ll have truly have something good to pass on to other people through your leadership abilities.
Liz Uram is the owner of The Coach & Mentor Group, a training and development company.