This post is follow-up to Friday’s Post on Self-Leadership: Your Biggest Leadership Challenge.
Before one can lead others, they must first learn to lead themselves.
Start your week off right with these 5 Steps to Self-Leadership
Personal Goal Setting
Set personal goals, rather seeking motivation solely from goals established by a supervisor or department head. Personal ownership effects not only motivation, but pride and productivity.
Constructive Thought Patterns
Thing positively about your goals and what it will take to succeed. When I played basketball in high school, my coach told us to think through the game we were about to play. Imagine making shots. Imagine obstacles and how to go around them. Thinking negatively about the outcome of an event unquestionably influences commitment and performance; the opposite logically stands to be true.
Productive Environments
Alter a job or task so as to create a refreshing or challenging atmosphere where you might enjoy working in more. Work where you know you will get stuff done. For me, that is a coffee shop.
Self –Monitoring
Keep yourself personally accountable for task management, performance, and deadlines. Because one cannot view his own performance from a third-person point of view, creating systems of feedback add value to this element. Marshal Goldsmith recommends 360° Feedback, soliciting suggestions from peers and employees, and genuinely listening, and acting upon this information are key traits of effective leaders.
Self-Rewards
You often have control over a reward or consequence, which Skinner called reinforcers, but try choosing not to take it until a certain task is accomplished. Refrain from certain pleasures unless you finish a project on time. If I am working on a big project, I will reward myself with ice cream. I only get the reward if I finish well and on time. Or take a 10-minute break after every 10 pages read of a large textbook, or 20 pages of a normal-sized book.
Effective self-leadership always precedes effective team-leadership.
How do you effectively lead yourself? Do you use any of these?
