Course 4. Foundational Leadership Principles: (Discussion #3) Lead Yourself
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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:
1. Share one area where you scored low on your self-awareness check-in and one thing you will do to improve?
2. Please reply to 3 of your peers in this thread!
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1) I need to work on asserting myself because I am not good at standing up for myself. I tend to let others walk all over me.
@positiveTurtles
Hello!
Thank you for being so brave to share that about yourself. I am sure that you will be able to stand up for yourself and whenever you feel like you can't we have your back over here!
Confidence in my direction so I am not easily swayed or doubt myself easily.
To improve I will work on thinking through my decisions and why I should believe in myself more.
@FlourishingDimensions
Hello!
I understand how confidence in decision-making can be hard to achieve. I have been there before. I'm sure you'll be great at it!
@Heather225
1. Share one area where you scored low on your self-awareness check-in and one thing you will do to improve?
I should overall improve my communication skills. That involves making sure that I am saying the things that I want to say without being scared of what others would think. In other words, just keeping in mind that as long as I am being supportive and giving appropriate feedback it is okay to do so.
I'm not sure where this check-in is.
One thing I need to do is improve on my resilience. My mental strength to deal with difficult times so I don't keep getting knocked down, or want to turn and run because things get too hard and/or uncomfortable.
Motivating my team to work: I can remmber to introduce many team-building activities and "break" time activities to let them have fun to work.
@explore1000, this is a great way to motivate your team! Get to know you activities, team building, and break activities can bring a team together which will help with getting tasks done efficiently and effectively. A lot of times leaders will have their team work and expect them to only take their individual breaks, but in reality a team that can do activities together will fair better than a team doing activities individually.
@wonderfulRainbow817
Right... need to Motivate my team to work and to introduce many team-building roles
@explore1000
Having fun while working will also increase the overall productivity!
@Hope2103
Productivity increases surely
@explore1000 break time is good indeed B)
@explore1000
Fun involved tasks can really boost up one's motivation.
@explore1000
I'm so glad that you identified motivation as an area of improvement! This is very important for increasing productivity and effectiveness in the workplace. Your method for motivating your team is also great, since having breaks and introducing team-building activities can keep your team engaged! Great work!
@explore1000
Great approach.
@explore1000
this is a great way to motivate your team! Get to know you activities, team building, and break activities can bring a team together which will help with getting tasks done efficiently and effectively. A lot of times leaders will have their team work and expect them to only take their individual breaks, but in reality a team that can do activities together will fair better than a team doing activities individually.
@explore1000
I need to Motivate my team to work and to introduce many team-building roles
@explore1000
I think working on the skill of motivating your team to work is a good goal. When people feel motivated, they have fun with their work.
1. Share one area where you scored low on your self-awareness check-in and one thing you will do to improve?
I need to be less harsh on myself and gain more confidence in myself to succeed. I will improve by reminding myself of the accomplishments I have and that I am a human being and humans make mistakes but it’s about getting back up from the mistakes and learning from them that count!
I feel like we are often our harshest critics in this world. It can be good to be strict on ourselves, but not at the cost it affects our confidence. By reminding ourselves of the accomplishments we have achieved it can be the motivation we need to succeed.
@Brinaa101
So true! Making mistakes is normal, we just need to get back up and learn from them!
@Brinaa101 you're allowed to make mistakes and learn from them, making mistakes is natural human behavior. I am glad you're working on being less harsh on yourself. ❤
@Brinaa101 here's a hug for you to motivate you to be kinder <3 
@Brinaa101
That's really very important for one to appreciate themselves. It boosts up our self-motivation enabling us to work more efficiently.
@Brinaa101
I completely agree that being less strict on ourselves and gaining more confidence can improve your performance as a leader of self-awareness. I really like your method of improvement; it is definitely important to learn from your mistakes and also remind yourself of your accomplishments. Nice job!
@Brinaa101
You willl do a good job. All the best!
@Brinaa101
I think reminding yourself of your accomplishments is a great way to improve in this area!
@Heather225
I scored low on self-confidence. I have confidence in myself but I don't always have that ability in certain situations. For example, I struggle having self-confidence when leading a group of people. I plan on hosting more sessions/pop up sessions to help improve this. Also, at work I will take that leap of faith and take control where appropriate and run with it.
@wonderfulRainbow817
I am glad you are working on increasing your self-confidence! Keep it up!
@wonderfulRainbow817 I am glad you're working on it! Goodluck. ❤
@wonderfulRainbow817 you're doing great so far, you've got this <3
@wonderfulRainbow817
Self-confidence is definitely important in improving your leadership skills, both in a team setting and in a self-awareness perspective. The methods of improvement that you identified are wonderful! It is definitely important to expose yourself to hosting and other leadership positions so that you can learn how to "take that leap of faith"! What a great response!
@wonderfulRainbow817
Keep shining.
@Heather225
Share one area where you scored low on your self-awareness check-in and one thing you will do to improve?
- Patience to wait for my fellow team member to understand and work on their respective tasks.
- Trust my team members with the task. I had a experience in the past where I didn't trust my peer and ended up ruining the project.
- Not procrasinate as I am in a team and I am not the only one it will affect.
- Learn to not take opinions as a personal attack. I need to understand that people have opinions and as a leader I should provide them a space where they can freely express their views.
@Hope2103
I just realized I was suppose to write only one area! Sorry!
@Hope2103
One thing you will do to improve? (Sorry again)
- I guess to communicate more clearly with the team members.
@Hope2103 , You got this. ❤
@Hope2103 Good luck!
@Hope2103
Patience and trust are needed for leaders.
Patience can be really hard to culture sometimes.
▪︎ Share one area where you scored low on your self-awareness check-in and one thing you will do to improve?
~ One thing I scored low in my self-awareness check-in is setting boundaries and self care. I tend to overlook my personal needs before taking up any responsibility or helping someone and take a lot of work at a time, resulting in breaking of my personal boundaries and less self care and burnout, I have been working on setting boundaries for myself and learning to say "No" when needed, it is important to maintain healthy boundaries for yourself and for sure it is not easy thing to do but definitely worth it. I can do simple and small things such as taking one step at a time, taking enough time for self care, prioritizing things including my health and personal needs, learning to say no when I am not in my best capability to support and be mindful of responsibilities I take for myself.
@unique73 yeah boundaries and self care are so important
@Heather225 1. Share one area where you scored low on your self-awareness check-in and one thing you will do to improve?
Self-confidence. I think a lot of leaders struggle with this—well, people in general. People just tend to fake it most of the time. Fake it until they make it. I will treat myself kinder to improve.
@milkoreos that's true!
@milkoreos
Very true self confidence is really important!
@milkoreos
that's a valid point. Having confidence can help you in many ways