Leadership of the self

Before we aspire to lead others, we have to judge whether we can lead ourselves. The other side of this is – before we impose our leadership on others, are we willing to be led by someone like ourselves? Is our leadership good enough for us or shall we prefer to choose someone else as our leader?

For leading ourselves, first we must be aware of where we are at this moment and then have to be absolutely clear about where we want to go, when we want to reach there, and should know how we would go there. Pursuing the destination or objective single-mindedly with courage and a dogged determination and discipline, we have to be flexible in our approach to it. Throughout this exercise, however, we must maintain our integrity and uphold our values. Keeping the foregoing in mind we, as a leadership aspirant, should prepare ourselves by taking up some project to improve ourselves in some significant way or to give up a bad habit, which had been militating against our success in the past. If we can do it successfully our self-confidence will get a boost. And then based on our positive experience with ourselves we will be in a better shape and in a better frame of mind to take up a leadership role involving others as our team members.

As for the question if we want to be led by someone like ourselves – we know the qualities of heart and mind we would like to see in our leader. Hence it is not asking for too much that we inculcate the same qualities in ourselves and then rightfully deserve to be our own leader. Leading others then will not be difficult for we will do that with confidence born out of real conviction.