You have a choice. You can accept the status quo or you can step up and become the leader you are looking for.

Stop waiting and start leading. Leadership is not bestowed. It is not a title. It is earned through action and example.

“Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.”

~ John C. Maxwell ~

This series of articles is not about what your leaders need to do to turn you into a leader. This series is about what you can do for yourself to become a leader in your own right. Wherever you sit within an organisation, you can lead.

Magic happens when everyone leads.

Self-management

Last week in this series “When Everyone Leads” I explore the self-awareness component of emotional intelligence.

Self-awareness means you know who you are. Understanding yourself is foundational to other leadership competencies including self-control, empathy, collaboration, effective decision-making and building trust.

Also critical for leadership is self-management. Self-management is your ability to use your awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and direct your behaviour positively. This involves your ability to put your immediate needs aside to focus on long-term goals.

Why it is important

Self-management is the next step after self-awareness. You cannot manage your emotions if you do not understand them. When you are aware of them you can control them to act with integrity and honesty consistently.

As a leader, this allows you to take charge of difficult situations and respond rather than react. You can respond positively and proactively rather than getting hijacked by your emotions.

“Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power”   Lao Tzu

You can truly lead when you know yourself and can master yourself.

As Camille Preston says: “If knowledge is power, self-knowledge will become platinum power. When we know ourselves, when we are self-aware and can self-regulate, we are more effective at discerning and being agile. With this, we can break down challenges and identify clear outcomes, even as we attempt to navigate increasingly large volumes of information.”

Developing self-management

There are 17 self-management strategies. Reproduced from getstoryshots.com

1. Breathe right. Oxygen goes first to your body’s vital functions, then to complex functions that help you stay calm. Learning correct breathing techniques and consciously focusing on it when you’re stressed is simple and often-repeated advice, but it is crucial.

2. Create an emotion vs. reason list. Make a habit of creating a list whenever your emotions and reasoning are in conflict, with your emotions on one side and rational reasons on the other. Use the list to identify which emotions aren’t valid considerations, and which ones offer important cues that your reason may have missed.

3. Make your goals public. Because most self-management is a matter of motivation, by making your goals public you can harness the motivation of the expectations of others. Share the right goals with the right people who will keep you accountable for each one.

4. Count to ten. Use this basic self-management trick to re-engage your rational mind when necessary. You can do something else like take a drink to get the same effect and give yourself those few moments.

5. Sleep on it. When you don’t know what to do, time will often give you clarity by allowing emotions to run their course and settle down before you make a decision.

6. Talk to a skilled self-manager. Ask a skilled self-manager about his or her self-management processes in order to gain insights to modify your own behavior.

7. Smile and laugh more. Because changing your external expression can influence your internal mood, forcing yourself to smile can counteract a negative mood.

8. Set aside some time in your day for problem-solving. Simply put 15 minutes on your schedule to stop the flurry of activity and emotion, and take time to think without the disturbance of your phone or computer.

9. Take control of your self-talk. The average person has about 50,000 thoughts per day, each of which triggers chemical reactions in your brain that influence your emotions and behavior. You usually don’t notice this, but you can improve your self-management by identifying negative self-talk (I always, I never, I’m an idiot, it’s their fault, etc.) and replacing it with healthier thoughts (sometimes I make that mistake, I accept responsibility, etc.).

10. Visualize yourself succeeding. Because your brain reacts the same way to visualizing something as it does to you actually experiencing it, visualization is a simple but powerful tool to prime yourself for success. Take the time each night before you go to bed and visualize yourself acting the way you’d like in situations that you’ve had difficulty with in the past, or might have difficulty with the next day.

11. Clean up your sleep hygiene. You need 20 minutes of natural morning sunlight each day to reset your biological clock. Avoid caffeine after breakfast (caffeine stays in your system for 12 hours), screens for two hours before bed (the blue light prevents production of hormones needed for sleep), and activities such as working or watching TV in bed (which prevent your brain from cuing your body to sleep when you’re in bed).

12. Focus your attention on your freedoms, rather than your limitations. Take accountability for what you can influence in any situation (such as your own attitudes and reactions), instead of worrying about things beyond your control. The more you focus on what you can influence, the more you will find you are able to influence.

13. Stay synchronized. If your body language doesn’t match the situation, it’s a sign that your emotions are out of whack. Be aware of your body language and use it as a cue to address your emotions when necessary.

14. Speak to someone who is not emotionally invested in your problem. A second opinion can be invaluable, but only if the other person doesn’t have their own emotions about a particular situation. Find the right people to be sounding boards for the right situations.

15. Learn a valuable lesson from everyone you encounter. The key here is in the mindset; if you are looking to learn a valuable lesson from everyone you interact with, you will be in a mindset that makes you more flexible, open-minded, and relaxed. Always be asking yourself what you can learn about yourself or others from others’ behavior, and you’ll experience negative emotional reaction much less frequently.

16. Put a mental recharge into your schedule. Physical activity gives your brain an important rest, in addition to the physical benefits. Put physical exercise on your schedule rather than trying to fit it in if you have time.

17. Accept that change is just around the corner. Because people tend to be upset by change, acceptance that change is inevitable will save you a great deal of stress. The authors suggest taking time every week or two to write down some changes that could potentially happen in important areas of your life, as well as actions you would want to take if those changes happen.

Summary

Being able to self-manage as a leader can have a long learning curve. You may not get it right first time but when you continually trying to manage your emotions it will have far-reaching results.

Lean in and become the best possible version of yourself you can be.