Self-Leadership Explained: What Is Self-Leadership?

The self-leadership model is the practice of setting the course for your own life and finding the motivation to succeed. The concept of self-leadership originates from a 1983 text on organizational management by Charles C. Manz, in which he explains that self-leadership involves directing yourself toward tasks you’re naturally motivated to complete and managing yourself to complete necessary work when you don’t have motivation. Today, self-leading is widely recognized as the facilitation of behaviors that produce good mentors and team leaders, as well as an overall practice of personal well-being and positive psychology.

Developing self-leadership skills is important to being an effective leader since it hones your emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and self-management. Self-leadership requires self-awareness—the ability to discern how your own emotions or personal biases may affect your decision-making. When you accurately recognize your own competencies and challenges, you can create a better plan for reaching your desired outcome. Self-leadership enables managers to lead with more awareness and understanding, and it helps make great leaders who set an example for their teams.

Explore some of the skills that are most important to developing self-leadership:

1. 1. Self-awareness: It's important to hone your ability to clearly see yourself as you are, which takes dedicated introspection and mindfulness. A healthy sense of self-awareness helps with self-control, self-confidence, and feelings of validation, and it allows you to be open to critique and accountability.
2. 2. Goal-setting: It's important for a good self-leader to be proactive in identifying not just their goals, but how to reach those goals in manageable steps. Breaking down a large goal into attainable steps helps you avoid burnout and allows you to celebrate the smaller milestones you reach along the way. Extrapolating this attitude to the broader organizational behavior of your team can create a more relaxed and productive work environment.
3. 3. Self-motivation: A classic natural reward strategy involves taking long-term goals and dividing them into smaller goals that are more easily attainable. Optimizing motivation means recognizing what it is about a goal that appeals to you, then forming a strategy to align your natural strengths and values toward achieving that goal. Develop self-efficacy by continually taking steps toward that goal, ensuring that each stage of the process aligns with your intrinsic motivation.
4. 4. Constructive thought patterns: Reviewing your own performance allows you to assess your intentions and personal effectiveness, and it provides an opportunity to ensure that your cognitive strategies are geared toward self-reward and not self-punishment. Create a self-evaluation questionnaire that places the focus on improving your strengths, and practice self-talk that facilitates empowerment and job satisfaction. Focus on mental imagery of yourself that recognizes your capacity to grow, develop, and change. Behavioral strategies begin in the mind, and part of self-leadership training is learning to see yourself as having the ability to create, improvise, innovate, and adapt.

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