Course 2, Discussion 2: Lead by example
Great Leadership, unsurprisingly, starts with yourself!
Practice what you preach. Lead by example. I am sure all of you heard these phrases. But why are they so iconic?
Because the journey starts with the first step and you are the person who is taking the initiative to lead -- Start a journey! So, you are the one who needs to take the first step before expecting others to do it.
To start with leading yourself, close your eyes and visualize two people: someone who inspired and encouraged you to be like them, and someone who discouraged you to be not like them.
Then, write down the good qualities of the person who inspired you as well as the qualities of the second person. You do not have to be specific with the details. Just a bulleted list.
Now, compare the list to yourself. Note the good qualities you have, the bad qualities you have, and give yourself a rating on a scale of 1-10. What we just did is identified your strengths and weaknesses and what you need in order to lead yourself. This allows you to create self-awareness.
Self-awareness is key to leading yourself in the right direction. But, leading yourself is not easy. Just being self-aware isn't enough. It's igniting the spark but not enough to catch the fire. To catch the fire, you need to be persistent with your practice, which is regular reflection. Be consistent with monitoring your efforts and holding yourself accountable.
You can't effectively lead others until you know how to lead yourself. That happens through Self-Observant Leadership: when you deeply understand your identity, compare it to your reputation (how others experience you) and then make meaning of the observations, and choose to adapt.
Exercise:
✒️ What did you learn about yourself through the given exercise?
✒️ Respond to one of your peers in this thread
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To:
Focus on solutions, not problems.
Have a positive outlook.
Be encouraging even when challenges arise.
Support everyone in the team.
Remain neutral to everyone on the team - not pick favorites.
Be creative and think outside the box.
Have empathy and care for everyone on the team and ourselves.
Stick to the guidelines and rules that are set.
Give second chances - We are human, we all make mistakes.
We are all on a journey and we can always learn.
Be present and mindful of ourselves and others.
Qualities of leaders that do not inspire me:
To be:
Unable to make decisions.
Put blame on others for mistakes they are also countable for.
Avoid finding solutions, putting that responsibility on others.
Being critical of others in behavior and responses.
Picking favorites and being dismissive of those who they don't favor.
Not being attentive to how others feel.
Not caring how much time others have to spend on the work.
Having high expectations without holding up a positive and supportive environment.
Being unsupportive in communications and only caring for themselves.
Bragging about their achievements and only focusing on advancing their positions.
Not showing interest in team work, thinking that leaders only dish out the work.
Taking on too many work that they cannot handle, which causes them to go into burn out.
Badmouthing or creating triangulation within the workplace.
Breaking confidentiality and not caring about it.
_________________________
Comparing the list to myself:
I feel that I can relate to mostly everything on the positive aspect list.
I try my best to do my best, I focus on becoming the best leader I can be.
I have an open mind and I am always open to suggestions on how I can do better.
I want to learn and by getting suggestions is a wonderful way to do so.
I don't relate to anything on the negative list.
The reason for that is that I am aware of how this.
When I had a leader that was like this when I was working at a certain workplace,
it was just horrible. And I've always been mindful of not being like that leader.
I dislike how they treated everyone and how they lead.
I don't want to treat anyone like that.
We all deserve care and kindness.
Rating myself on the scale 1-10:
I believe that one can never be fully a 10.
We can always learn something new and improve ourselves.
So I would give me the rating of 8.5.
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@AnnaSilverberg
Thank you so much for this thorough insight - I look forward to reading more of your contributions :D
@AnnaSilverberg You have written such a thorough response! Thank you, it was very informative to know what you think about it and I completely agree with you!
✒️ What did you learn about yourself through the given exercise?
"You can't effectively lead others until you know how to lead yourself."
Thiss emphasizes that self-leadership is a crucial foundation for effective leadership of others ♡ By cultivating self-awareness, personal growth, emotional intelligence, goal setting (with systems), self discippline, and well being, I can develop the necessariiy qualities and skills to inspire and guide my team towards success.
@TabbyCat97
I completely agree, if I cannot lead myself, I cannot lead and or guide others.
@Hope
Through this activity I have learned what attributes I value in leaders I have met - organisation, wisdom and determination. These are attributes I see myself trying to cultivate in myself and I should work on harder as this is my image of success in leadership. I have also acknowledged characteristics I dislike such as arrogance, authoritarianism and apathy - all things I will try and steer away from!
@Hope
✒️ What did you learn about yourself through the given exercise? Have always strived to be a servant leader and what was being taught resonated well with me. I am still a work in progress but this discussion gave me some affirmation of knowing that I am somewhat on the path of growth.
@JLisjustlistening
That's great this has helped you see that you're on the right track for your personal growth.
✒️ What did you learn about yourself through the given exercise?
I learned that I need to take the first steps before waiting for someone else to do it first. I would just be a follower at that point. I also learned that I need to be persistent with my practice because I can't learn my qualities and not put work into using them and expect things to work out.
@Jenna
Great response! 💛
✒️ What did you learn about yourself through the given exercise?
That the people that I visualise as being highly inspirational have always led through examples, and through great Empathy, understanding and communication skills to help people around them reach a better place, and not just reach a particular goal
@Hope
✒️ What did you learn about yourself through the given exercise?
Interesting that I think the best leadership encourages self-reliance, asking for guidance and help when needed, hearing what others say and suggest, but if I have the responsibility for the success or failure, then that task success relies on me. How do I best achieve the goal???
✒️ Respond to one of your peers in this thread
@CharlieDont37 that is such an intuitive yet ingenious way to approach leadership.
I will definitely be adding that to my set of leadership strategies.
Thanks for sharing it with us!
@Hope this was a really fun exercise!
Self-reflection is something I enjoy doing, especially in this structured manner.
It helps me develop as a person and removes a lot of self-doubt from my everyday life.
Here are some of the leadership-relevant strengths I recognized through the exercise:
-
I am a highly objective person. I can very easily put aside my feelings about a person or an issue and focus on the objective facts of the matter.
This can at least somewhat minimize bias or prejudice in my decision-making when in a team setting.
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I am also a very practical person. I like to do the work myself at least once before I delegate or assign it forward.
This gives me the unique experience of knowing first-hand, the task I've given someone and what it takes to complete it.
- Lastly, I'm an introvert. Now this will go in both, the strengths and the weaknesses column and I'll give reasons for both.
Being an introvert is something that allows me to remain objective and impartial when I lead. It makes me value each team member's input equally and not have an internal conflict when having to disagree with a "friend" in the team.
Now here are some of the weaknesses:
-
I can be impatient at times, especially when a team member is not able to keep the pace I've been working at.
My first instinct is to just do that work myself instead of waiting for them.
And I understand that raises issues and I can't go around doing everyone's tasks when I'm in a leadership role so I do try to control myself and help the member complete their task more efficiently instead of just doing it for them.
-
I can sometimes come off as indecisive, especially to new team members, because I like to get everyone's input before giving my opinion or making a decision. This is something I do by design, it is not a mistake or consequence.
I like to keep my opinion to myself until I've gone around the room just so that team members don't feel pressured to agree with me.
I think this is a good practice in essence, but I am working on being able to better articulate myself so I can still maintain a confident presence without imposing my opinion on everyone else.
- Last but not least, I'm an introvert. Now as previously mentioned, there are some positives to it. But it isn't without consequences either.
It can often make me unapproachable to people. New team members can often be intimidated to come talk to me at first.
Now this is mitigated once they get to know me or have worked with me for a while but it still is worth mentioning. I do try my best to show team members that I'm always available though and most of them do open up very quickly.
@Mahad2804 I loved reading through your answer to this thread! You were very detailed and I can tell that you took this exercise very seriously 😎 Great job
@Mahad2804 I really liked your approach to being practical -- it can be very easy to do a role yourself, and then not want to delegate it because you are afraid of shifting responsibilities to other members, but you seem to have kept in mind the importance of sharing tasks and teaching new roles to succeed!
@Hope
I learned from this exercise that I must trust myself and believe in myself before putting my trust in others. This will build a base of confidence that one can lean on during difficult times in a team environment. Additionally, I noticed that I am good at having patience and empathy with people, but I tend to write them off if they don't communicate with me or hesitate to give feedback. I need to learn to reach out to people and not hesitate in providing feedback to anyone on my team. This is a key foundation for building trust. The phrase "How others experience you" gave me a lot to reflect on.